FUSED: iSEAL OMNIBUS EDITION (A Military Technothriller)

by Jude Hardin

  “Oh, I’m still interested. I can’t think of anything I’d rather do.”

  7 hours and 38 minutes before the blast…

  After waiting for all the software to be loaded, Cara followed Dr. Aggerson from the control room down to the monitor room. There were security cameras everywhere at CereCirc, so she needed to be careful, needed to be constantly aware that everything she did might end up on a hard drive somewhere.

  Pretending to casually put her hands in the pockets of her lab coat, she reached in and turned on her cell phone’s video camera. The screen would be blank on playback, but she didn’t care about getting any pictures. She wanted to record Dr. Aggerson’s voice.

  Access to the monitor room was limited, authorized personnel only. Aggerson swiped his ID card and pressed his thumb against the laser scanner. As far as Cara knew, only one other medical doctor and two or three of the nurses were free to enter the room without a security escort.

  Cara followed Dr. Aggerson through the door.

  MK-2 was resting in his chair, still in standby mode from the upload session.

  “MK-2, attention!” Aggerson said.

  MK-2’s eyes opened. He rose and stood at attention.

  “MK-2, reporting for duty, sir.”

  Cara noticed that MK-2’s voice sounded much more human now, just as Dr. Aggerson had promised.

  “At ease,” Aggerson said. “We’re going to spend some time calibrating your motor skills. During this time, I want you to speak to me casually, as you might speak to another member of your SEAL team. Okay?”

  “Sure, Clive. No problem.”

  Cara was amazed. Suddenly, MK-2 sounded like a regular guy. The robotic monotone and military formality had disappeared, along with any other evidence that a computer interface had been wired into his brain.

  No wonder Oberwand was so anxious to get his hands on this technology. It was the invention of the century.

  And it was her job to steal it.

  “We’re going to leave the monitor room now and walk to the gym,” Aggerson said to his test subject. “Feel like knocking down some bowling pins?”

  “Sounds like fun,” MK-2 said.

  Cara followed them to the other side of the facility. The gym was huge. There was a pool and a running track and free weights and dumbbells and every piece of exercise equipment on the market, and at the far end there was a glassed-in firing range that, today, had been modified to include a bowling alley.

  And an EEG machine.

  “Would you please tell us what this is for?” Aggerson said.

  It’s an electroencephalograph machine,” MK-2 said. “A device used to measure electrical activity in the brain. I’m assuming you’re going to hook those electrodes to my scalp and monitor the activity while I bowl.”

  “Exactly. Have a seat, and I’ll get you wired up.”

  “Okay.”

  MK-2 sat on a wooden stool beside a split fifty-five gallon drum that had been filled with bowling balls. Aggerson applied the gelled electrode patches to various parts of his scalp and then snapped the wires from the EEG machine onto the patches. When Aggerson was finished, he instructed MK-2 to stand and select one of the balls.

  MK-2 took one from the top, seemingly at random.

  “Go ahead and give it a try,” Aggerson said.

  MK-2 stood facing the pins, a few feet back from the foul line. Cara didn’t know much about bowling, but to her it appeared as though he’d been doing it all his life. He made his approach and released the ball, spinning it so that it veered to the right at first and then moved back toward the center of the lane. He knocked over seven pins on his first try, and bowled three more balls with similar results.

  Aggerson motioned for Cara to come and take a look at the readout from the EEG machine.

  “I really don’t know what I’m looking at,” she said. “Not my area of expertise.”

  “These blue lines are from his alpha waves, and the red lines are from his beta waves,” Aggerson said. “See how far apart they are? Once the program is calibrated properly, they’ll be much closer together. Ideally, I would like to see them overlapping into one solid purple line on the graph.”

  “Indicating what?”

  “Indicating a meditative state. Extreme focus combined with total relaxation. Once he achieves this state with the bowling program, all of the other programs should fall in line accordingly. He’ll be able to make a strike every time, and not just from an ordinary stance. I could hang him upside down, and he would still be able to knock down all of the pins. I could throw him off the top of a building, and his heart rate wouldn’t go above sixty.”

  Like a ninja, Cara thought.

  “You’re going to teach him?” she said.

  “No, he’s going to teach himself. Watch.”

  MK-2 continued picking up balls and hurling them at the pins. With each shot, he came closer and closer to the one in front, the one Dr. Aggerson called the head pin. And, with each shot, the alpha and beta waves from the EEG readout moved closer and closer together, merging at various points on the graph paper like highway lines on a roadmap.

  “This is really remarkable,” Cara said.

  “Isn’t it? And all we have to do is sit here while the BCI does the work. I have to tell you, Dr. Skellar, I’m very pleased with the device so far. Don’t you just love it when something performs well right out of the box?”

  “Absolutely. I guess having a top-notch test subject helps, too.”

  “You are correct. That’s why I wanted one of the Navy’s finest enlisted men. He was already more mentally disciplined and physically fit than ninety-nine point nine percent of the population to start with. I know there are companies out there trying to develop something like this for everyday people, but—”

  “Look!” Cara said. “The purple line you wanted.”

  The alpha waves and beta waves were perfectly aligned now.

  The two scientists peered toward the alley and watched MK-2’s next ball leave his fingers. It hit the pins with a thunderous roar, clearing them instantly and forcefully.

  “Now it’s time to start keeping score,” Dr. Aggerson said.

  MK-2 rolled twelve more balls, made twelve more strikes.

  A perfect game.

  “Amazing,” Cara said.

  Dr. Aggerson nodded. “He’s ready. Let’s go drink some champagne.”

  5 hours and 28 minutes before the blast…

  By the time they made it to the cafeteria, the rest of the team—and most of the food—was long gone. They sat at a table in the corner with a bottle of champagne and a bucket of ice. After two glasses, they dropped all formalities and started speaking to each other on a first-name basis. After four glasses, Cara asked Clive if he could give her a ride home.

  “I have a better idea,” Clive said.

  “And what’s that?”

  “I have some scotch in my room that I need to get rid of. It’s twenty-five years old, something crazy like that. I’m not sure, but I think it might be close to reaching its expiration date.”

  Cara laughed. “You’re crazy. Liquor doesn’t have an expiration date. Does it?”

  “No, but it’s the best excuse I can think of at the moment.”

  “Best excuse?”

  “To get you to my room. Come on, we’ll have one drink and then we’ll take a cab somewhere together. I’ll buy you dinner.”

  “You’re not going to get me drunk and try to take advantage of me, are you?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Darn. You’re no fun.”

  Clive smiled. Cara had never seen this side of him. He was a lot more charming and amiable with a few glasses of champagne under his belt. Cara had dumped most of hers in the flower pot behind their table while Clive wasn’t looking, letting just enough trickle down her throat to have it on her breath. She’d wanted to get him away from CereCirc, somehow, but this would be even better.

  Clive’s room was actually a luxury apartment b
uilt into the southwest corner of the facility. Cara had never been there, but she’d heard rumors about how nice it was. Aggerson chose to sleep there most of the time, rarely venturing outside the perimeter of CereCirc’s property. He was truly married to his work, Cara thought, more than any man she had ever known.

  Clive unlocked the door, and they walked inside.

  “Wow,” Cara said. “This is really nice.”

  Hardwood floors, vaulted ceilings, recessed lighting, ultramodern furniture and architectural details.

  Clive closed the door behind them and secured the deadbolt. “Thanks,” he said. “When I built the place, I knew I would be spending a lot of time here, so I wanted to make it as comfortable as possible.”

  Cara looked around. “No security cameras in here?”

  “A man has to have some privacy sometimes.”

  “Oh, I agree. Is that a real Picasso?”

  “You don’t think I would hang a forgery on my wall, do you?”

  “Just asking.”

  “Come on,” Clive said. “I’ll make us a drink.”

  Cara followed him to a built-in bar on the other side of the living room, where he poured some amber liquid from a decanter into two crystal rocks glasses.

  “No ice?” Cara said.

  “Ice ruins good scotch. Just taste it.”

  She took a sip. “Nice,” she said.

  She set her glass on the bar, and Clive set his beside it, and before she knew what was happening he’d put his arm around her and pulled her close and kissed her on the lips. Deeply, forcefully, hungrily. Cara didn’t resist. While he was kissing her, she opened her eyes and glanced over at the counter, at the nice little tray of mixology essentials she’d noticed earlier: a bar spoon, a shaker glass and tin, a citrus knife, a shot jigger, a muddler.

  And a shiny new ice pick with a stainless steel handle.

  Cara reached over and grabbed the menacingly sharp implement and jammed it into Aggerson’s throat with a swift, fluid, overhand motion. An agonized sound erupted from deep in his chest, something between a wheeze and a scream. He staggered sideways, and Cara hit him with the pick again, this time through the left eye socket. He dropped to his knees, collapsed to the floor face first. His muscles twitched and he took a couple of ragged breaths and then he was gone.

  Cara didn’t waste any time. She grabbed the knife from the tray and amputated Aggerson’s right thumb. She found a zip-lock bag in the drawer under the counter, dropped the thumb into the bag, and then dropped the bag and the knife into her pocket. She turned Aggerson over and fished his CereCirc ID card from the lanyard around his neck.

  None of this was part of the plan. Cara was improvising, taking advantage of the opportunities at hand. She’d totally disregarded Oberwand’s directives, but he wouldn’t care as long as she made it out of the facility with the test subject.

  And if she didn’t, he would kill her.

  She exited the apartment and walked toward the monitor room. Steady pace, unhurried. She didn’t want to draw any attention to herself.

  Not that there were many people around to notice her anyway. Most of the day shift had gone home after the party, and the night shift hadn’t arrived yet. The building was as empty as Cara had ever seen it. In fact, the security guard was probably the only other person around at the moment. He nodded as she walked past the circular desk. Once she’d gone by and his back was to her, she turned and grabbed his hair with her left hand and slid the citrus knife across his throat with her right.

  She’d gone for the trachea, but she must have gotten a little carried away and sliced through his right carotid artery as well. A fountain of bright red blood squirted out and dotted her white lab coat.

  She looked down and grimaced, silently cursing the guard for staining her pristine garment. His eyes bulged and he gurgled and thrashed and finally collapsed in a heap at the center of his station.

  Of course everything had been captured on video, but Cara didn’t care about that anymore. She would be leaving the premises soon, never to return, and she would be leaving the country tonight, heading to a nice little spot in Central America where nobody would ever find her.

  But she didn’t want to get ahead of herself. There was still a lot of work to do.

  She made her way to the monitor room, swiped Aggerson’s card and pressed his severed thumb against the scanner.

  Nothing happened.

  She examined the thumb. A smear of blood had dried on the print side. The tiny grooves were probably caked with it, Cara thought, preventing the scanner from receiving a proper image. She should have washed the appendage back at the apartment.

  She looked at her watch. 6:07. Some of the early birds on the night shift would start showing up soon. Cara needed to hurry, or she was going to be spending the rest of her life in a prison cell instead of on a tropical beach.

  She spit on the thumb, and then wiped it on her lab coat. She did this a second time, and a third. It was totally gross, the most disgusting thing she’d ever done in her life. But she was desperate now. She had to get into the monitor room before the night shift arrived. Failure was not an option.

  She swiped Aggerson’s card again and pressed the thumb on the scanner again, but the door still wouldn’t open.

  Cara’s heart pounded in her chest. She couldn’t seem to get enough air. She was running out of time, and she didn’t know what to do. For a moment, she thought about just ditching the whole assignment. She thought about dashing out to the parking lot and climbing into her car and driving off into the sunset.

  But she didn’t have enough money yet, not enough to disappear the way she needed to disappear. If she left now, she would have to run from the law, and from her own outfit. Even if she was able to get a different car right away, Oberwand’s people would find her, and they would kill her. They were very good at that sort of thing.

  6:11.

  Cara had one more idea. There was a registered nurse on duty at CereCirc 24/7. Today, it was a young woman named Blaine Satherly. Cara had seen her early in the shift. Blaine wouldn’t have been authorized to drink any champagne at the party, and she wouldn’t have left the building with the others.

  And she had unlimited access to all the spaces at CereCerc Solutions.

  She was probably in the clinic right now, waiting for the night shift nurse to show up and relieve her. Cara had decided to call in a medical emergency, get Blaine down to the monitor room, force her to open the door, and then kill her. Or kill her first if she turned out to be stubborn. Whatever the situation called for.

  Cara didn’t want to hurt anyone else, but she couldn’t think of any other way. She reached into her pocket for her cell phone, and instead felt the miniature bottle of hand sanitizer she always kept with her. She’d forgotten about it, the way you forget about a spare tire. It’s there when you need it, but otherwise you don’t give it much thought. She pulled the little bottle out and pumped some of the gel onto Aggerson’s thumb. She swirled it around and worked it in with her finger, wiped the excess on her lab coat, pressed the thumb against the scanner.

  Success!

  The deadbolt clicked open, and Cara walked inside.

  MK-2 was sitting in his chair. He was in standby mode, the way Aggerson had left him after the calibration session at the bowling alley. Cara needed to get him out of the building and into her car. She thought about finding a wheelchair or a gurney, but she doubted that she could lift and position him by herself. She would try if it came to that, but first she wanted to test the little recording she’d made earlier with her cell phone.

  She listened with the volume low, tapped the pause button, and then cranked it to the max and pressed play.

  “MK-2. Attention!” Aggerson’s recorded voice said.

  Remarkably, MK-2 opened his eyes, rose from the chair and stood at attention. Cara’s idea had worked! MK-2 had responded to the recording. He’d switched from standby mode to active mode, the same as if Dr. Aggerson had been stand
ing right there in front of him.

  “MK-2 reporting for duty, sir,” he said.

  “I’m not a sir,” Cara said. “I’m a ma’am.”

  A puzzled expression washed over MK-2’s face. “Where’s Dr. Aggerson?” he said.

  “He’s in trouble. He needs your help.”

  “Who are you?”

  Cara handed him her ID card. “I’m the chief chemical engineer here at the facility. I designed the coating on your implant.”

  MK-2 examined the card, apparently scanning the magnetic strip on the back with his eyes. Cara knew that he’d been programmed to recognize anyone from CereCirc as a friend.

  “Where’s Dr. Aggerson?”

  “I’ll take you to him.”

  Cara walked to the door, motioned for MK-2 to follow.

  And he did.

  4 hours and 56 minutes before the blast…

  Cara led MK-2 to one of the emergency exits, pushed the door open and walked out to the parking lot. She knew that a visual alarm would flash at the security station inside, but it didn’t matter. There was nobody around to see it.

  Twilight. It had rained earlier, and the pavement was still wet. The fat October moon had started to rise, and a few bright stars were visible on the horizon. Nobody from the night shift had shown up yet.

  Dodging a puddle, Cara unlocked her car, and she and MK-2 climbed inside.

  “Where are we going?” MK-2 said. “What happened to Dr. Aggerson?”

  “A very bad man abducted him, a man who wants to steal his secrets.”

  “What man?”

  “His name is Oberwand,” Cara said.

  “Oberwand,” MK-2 repeated.

  Cara was fiddling with her cell phone, trying to find the right spot on the recording. She finally located it, turned the volume up, and pressed play.

  “MK-2, go to standby mode,” Aggerson’s voice said.

  MK-2 stopped talking. He closed his eyes. Cara reached over and lowered his seat to the reclining position, hoping to keep him out of sight. She started the car, steered away from the parking lot, headed down the winding strip of blacktop toward the front gate, where she swiped her card and scanned her thumb and said goodbye to CereCirc forever.