Sleeper Agent

by M. Anthony Harris

“What’s wrong?” I heard a worried voice ask through the speaker system. It took me a couple of seconds to place the face behind it.

  “I’m OK, Safid. It was just a really freaking weird dream. It’s like I was two different people.”

  “Well, that should make for quite the briefing,” he said, his voice still laden with concern, but carrying a slightly different tone. It was almost as if he were protecting some sort of secret.

  “Safid told us that you had a really odd dream today, Stephen. Tell us about it.” Helena said.

  I took a minute to collect myself and down the rest of my coffee. “It started pretty normally. I was giving this speech about how our country had failed us and got the whole cell all riled up, and after I dismissed them, I told my top two guys to stay behind because we had more things to discuss. I told them something about becoming the nation’s nightmare and killing any who were too weak to support the new order. When I heard that I got a big shock. I remember thinking something like ‘How could he do something like that? He must be a psycho,’ and after that was when things got weird. Someone else asked who was watching.”

  The looks on the faces around the room were of shock. It was nearly a minute before anyone dared to speak again.

  After sharing a questioning look toward Helena with the rest of the group, Sasha spoke up. “OK, this is really important. Tell us all you can remember, down to the smallest detail, like the color of the walls in the buildings you saw, to how many people were in the crowd that you spoke to and their hair color. Also, you gotta go into as much detail as you can about the interaction you had with your dream self. This is a goldmine of information. If we can find how to talk to our subconscious there could be unlimited possibilities!

  “I’ll do my best.”

  “Just make sure that you tell us every detail that you can remember.”

  “OK, here we go.” I cracked my knuckles and launched into it.

  6

  Even after seven months of getting up early for work I still wasn’t a fan of mornings, but this one was different. The fluorescent pink horizon wasn’t the only reason that I was smiling.

  Yesterday I had finally summoned the courage to ask Sasha out for a real date. To my surprise, she had responded with a radiant smile and an immediate yes. The idiotic smile that’d pasted itself on me after hearing her reply hadn’t left my face since. Even after having stayed up far too late making plans for the date, I had woken refreshed and excited.

  My enthusiasm had barely calmed by the time I pulled up to an empty stoplight a mile or two from work. I glanced at the sky while I waited.

  Just look at this sky. It’s awesome! Plus you got the most amazing girl you’ve ever met to agree to go on a date with you! Even if nothing happens, that’s pretty awesome. I grinned.

  I was so caught up in my thoughts that I didn’t notice the white van barreling down on me.

  It slammed into the rear of my car and hurtled me through the intersection. A second vehicle—a huge pickup truck—T-boned me. My head snapped into the window, radiating spiderweb cracks from the point of impact, and my vision blurred instantly. The last thing I saw before the darkness took me was a group of heavily armed, masked men filing out of the van.

  The sharp scent of smelling salts startled me awake from the dreamless slumber that the crash had brought. I heard the rumbling of an engine but couldn’t see anything. I panicked, thinking that I’d been blinded by the impact, before I noticed a fibrous fabric scratching me. My face itched terribly, but I couldn’t reach it; my hands had been zip-tied to a bar in what must have been a repurposed work van.

  I strained my ears to catch anything that might give me a clue to our location, but whoever had abducted me were professionals. Loud music poured through the speakers, making it impossible to hear anything outside of the van and get any clue to our location.

  Every time I would slip into unconsciousness, I was harshly brought back to the waking world. Sometime later—I don’t know how long—the van rolled to a stop, and I heard the doors open. Rough hands grabbed me, and I was dragged out and unceremoniously dumped on the hard, dusty ground.

  “Sir!” the small platoon sang in unison, the click of their heels telling of a background in the armed forces.

  “Prep him for an interrogation!” their superior barked.

  7

  “Tell me what you saw!” his loud voice tore through the air. The burlap sack was pulled off and a few stray pieces of fiber found their way to my startled eyes before they shut, causing them to burn like I’d been pepper sprayed.

  “I have no clue what you are talking about!” tears obscured my vision.

  “You’re lying!” he said, hitting me with a backhanded slap.

  My mouth filled with the copper taste of blood.

  “What do you want me to say? I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

  “We know you’ve been spying on us!” he shouted at me, spittle shooting out of the mouth of a face hidden by a balaclava.

  “I told you already, I don’t know anything! I don’t have a clue about what’s going on! Your stool pigeon must’ve gotten the wrong info!”

  “You’ll talk sooner or later.” He followed with a string of curses.

  He brought his military boot down on my foot. Pain radiated throughout my leg.

  “Stop! I swear I don’t know!” I cried out, begging for mercy.

  “I guess I’ll just have to beat it out of you,” came the menacing reply, followed by a series of fists that peppered my body. I was close to passing out from the pain when a second voice chimed in.

  “OK, that’s enough! Take him to the holding cell, and set a guard on him. We don’t want him falling asleep on us.”

  The beatings sapped my strength, and I could barely keep my eyes open, but every time I nodded off, a guard was there to roughly shake me awake.

  Between my periods of delirium, they would come in, refastened my hands with a new set of zip ties, and toss the sack over my head. They kept leading me back to the interrogation chamber for a new round of questioning. Each time there was more screaming, more pleading, and more beatings.

  They kept trying to pummel the intel out of me, intel that I had never obtained. Try as I might I couldn’t think of any way I could have stumbled onto their plans, and I told them as much. Their continued beatings told me that they didn’t believe me. I couldn’t for the life of me think of where they’d gotten the idea that I was some sort of spy who’d been gathering intelligence on them. I was a lowly subject in a sleep research study. The closest I’d ever come to terrorism was what ran through my head when I slept.

  “How much did you see?”

  “I’ve said it a million times before! I haven’t seen anything! I’ve only seen terrorist plans in the movies. What do you want me to do, dream up an attack?”

  “Tell me about your dreams!” He shouted, spittle flying with his harsh t’s.

  My mind wandered as my interrogator’s voice jumbled away into white noise. Exhaustion made it impossible to keep focused on anything for longer than a couple seconds.

  I wonder if this is what it feels like to have ADD.

  The interrogator interrupted my thought with a fist that slammed into my floating rib, causing me to gasp for air that wouldn’t come.

  “I said, tell me about your dreams!”

  When I didn’t answer quickly enough, he fastened jumper cables onto the rusty old chair that I was tied to. My body seized, wracked from the pain.

  “What have you been dreaming?”

  If I wasn’t writhing from pain I may have laughed at the absurdity of the situation: a seasoned warrior torturing me and begging to know what went on in my dreams.

  Wait, what if there's something to that?

  “What do you mean, what am I dreaming?” I shouted.

  “You heard me! Answer the question! If you answer I can make this all stop,” he softened his voice.

  “I have no clue what you want from me! B
elieve me, if I knew what you wanted me to say, I would’ve told you long ago!” I shouted before I loosed a string of curse words and spat in his eyes.

  The brick wall of a fist slammed into my jaw. I was out, and the next thing I knew, my perspective switched. I was wiping my eyes and looking down on my body.

  “Wake him up!” he screamed.

  What’s going on?

  “I’m trying to. It isn’t working!” I shouted.

  That isn’t my voice. Who’s he talking to?

  “Here’re the smelling salts,” the second man said and shoved them into my body’s nostrils, to no effect.

  “This is serious. Get the adrenaline!”

  What’s going on? Why can I see myself?

  I turned at the sound of the second soldier running and caught a reflection. I knew the eyes that stared back at me, but they weren't mine.

  The hypodermic needle slammed into my body’s chest, and I was jolted awake. Fire coursed through my veins, and time crystalized around one thought: My dreams are real.

  8

  They knew all along! I was nothing more to them than a glorified spy! It’s their fault I’m here!

  A wave of emotions flooded me as I was dragged back to my cell. I felt betrayed, hurt, frustrated, and, above all, furious.

  They told me that it was just sleep research.

  They lied to me and used me! I’ve probably committed treason under their watch.

  How could they let me end up here?

  How did I miss it?

  They USED me!

  I struggled to focus through the web of emotions that tumbled through my mind, but eventually one thought anchored itself.

  My interrogators somehow knew about my abilities before I did.

  Whoever abducted me has to be in here somewhere. I sifted through my memories to find their identities. They had to know about me somehow. They must have been connected to the Institute in some way. I must’ve come across them in one of my sessions. I had to have dreamed about them, and someone sold me out.

  * * *

  I spent the next couple of agonizing hours dredging up every single session I’d done at the Institute. It took every ounce of focus I could squeeze out of my bleary mind, but eventually I poured through every memory and sifted every bit of information I’d collected. I was so consumed with anger at Helena and the researchers that it wasn’t until the third re-examination that everything clicked. By the time I’d finished I was nearly delirious, but I’d found it.

  It was the domestic terror dream that I’d had weeks ago. I had watched them planning an attack, and the leader had somehow known that I was there. It had to have been that day, the day that my dreams spoke back to me.

  He knew that I was watching. How did he know? I thought. He must have deep connections in the intelligence world, but how, and why would he be watching? Or is it possible that he’s the same as me?

  That last thought was truly unnerving. What would it look like if they weaponized it?

  9

  Hours later, the quiet rumblings of footsteps interrupted my train of thought, and the cell door swung open. Rough hands reached for me, dragged me to my feet, and threw the gunnysack over my head once again. The course fibers that rubbed into my already bruised and bloodied face made the painful walk even worse. A few blurry minutes later, I was shoved down into the rough chair and tied down; then the bag was torn off, leaving its small traces in my eyes, burning them and causing them to water.

  “We’ve already been over this hundreds of times before. The more you tell me, the less pain you will be in. I just want to know what you saw. And don’t say that you didn’t see anything. We both know that isn’t true,” the brick of a man tried to convince to me.

  “I’ve told you a million times already! I don’t know what attack you’re talking about!”

  “You said attack, why’d you say attack?” My interrogator caught the slip.

  “You’re torturing me for information. That’s only something that terrorists would do, so of course I’m assuming that you guys are planning some sort of attack!”

  “I don’t buy it. You know something that you aren’t telling me. You’ve seen things,” he said, reaching for the jumper cables, which he calmly reattached to the old metal chair.

  I grimaced and silently prayed that he wouldn’t attach the other end of the cables to the car battery at my feet, but I knew that I had to take some more abuse to sell the plan that I’d formed in the brief respite between the torture sessions. I cried out in agony as he clamped down the cables. My muscles felt like they were snapping as my body went rigid from the electricity, but still I refused to talk. It wasn’t until half an hour later that I finally relented.

  “Fine, fine, fine! I’ll tell you what I know!” I said, barely audible.

  “Tell me!” he leaned in close, his eyes tore into mine. It was as if he were trying to burn the truth out of me with his glare.

  “OK, OK, I’ll tell you,” I said softly, causing him to lean in to catch what I said.

  “I’m listening.”

  “I did see something. It was horrible, sickening in fact.” my words drew him in.

  He leaned in closer to hear the near inaudible whisper, and I whipped my head forward like a snake striking. I latched onto his ear with my teeth and tore as hard as I could. My mouth filled with blood.

  He let out a string of curses as I smiled, blood and saliva dripping off my chin.

  “Now you won’t be hearing anything,” I laughed and spat the remains of his ear on the ground.

  The resulting series of blows had me out cold before I could even register the sight of his fists.

  I ignored the collection of shouts and curses as I looked down on my body. Some small part of me registered the collection of bruises that I’d gathered and the gauntness that days without sleep had brought. I was tempted to stay and watch what unfolded, but I knew that I might not get another chance at gathering the intel I needed to make my escape, so I left the scene and targeted the guard who had brought me to the interrogation chamber.

  I jumped from body to body, gathering as much information as I could, all the while both blessing and cursing the Institute that’d played me and used me as a spy without my knowledge. I cursed them for getting me into this situation without telling me but thanked them for working me so stringently on the observational skills that I was now putting to the ultimate test.

  I memorized every nook and cranny of the facility as I jumped from mind to mind each time someone came into sight. I felt that I was I gathering so much data that my brain would short-circuit, and I wondered what would happen if my consciousness overloaded while in a different host.

  Every detail that I saw I burned into my mind, down to the color of hair of every person. I knew that not only my life, but also possibly the lives of many innocent people, hung in the balance, and my escape would be the only thing keeping them safe. Even if it left me permanently damaged, I’d do everything that I possibly could to get out of there.

  For a split second time seemed to crystalize, and I panicked. I thought that I’d somehow lost my body and would be drifting forever, but then I felt my consciousness being slammed back into my body. I fought it with everything I could, but the effort was futile. I startled awake to the strong ammonia scent of smelling salts.

  The interrogation continued after that, but an hour and many bruises later, they concluded that they’d get nothing more from me, so they sent me back to my cell.

  I let out a whisper of thanks that my guard had zipped tied my hands in front of me, and as soon as my guard’s back was turned, I raised my arms, then slammed them on my chest with all the force I could muster, snapping my binds. I silently stripped off my shirt and tied one of the sleeves to the bars covering the window. Then I wrapped the second one around my neck and leaned forward.

  Within seconds my faced reddened to a deep burgundy and my breathing shallowed to faint gasps. My vision started to tunnel and my body
protested its deprivation by sending my arms and legs flailing in an attempt to free itself and gain life-sustaining oxygen.

  Almost immediately the leathery-skinned guard burst into the cell, smoothly whipped out his serrated bowie knife, and sawed through the sleeve that was restricting my breathing. I fell to my knees at his feet.

  It took everything in me not to immediately rip off the sleeve that wrapped around my neck like a python. I only would get one chance at escape and every second counted, so I reached for the bulge in his sock and said a silent prayer of thankfulness when I confirmed that the knife I’d seen during my body hopping was exactly where I remembered it. I yanked it out of his ankle sheath and jammed it into his inner thigh, hoping that it would land somewhere close to the femoral artery. I was able to stab him two more times before his hand slammed my face into the ground and my nose made a sickening crunch.

  I rebounded and drove my shoulders into his knees, sending him tumbling backwards. We scrambled in a desperate attempt for control. I flailed and tried to grab the rifle that was slung over his shoulder but was intercepted with a fist that slammed my face like a freight train and caused my already-bleeding nose to start cascading like a waterfall.

  The force of his blows knocked me back a couple of feet, and his training kicked in as he immediately rebounded and kicked me as if he were a punter and my ribs were a football. I heard the crack of snapping ribs as the breath was forced from my lungs and my side flared in pain. He loaded his hips for another, stronger kick aimed at my face. I rolled into his legs before he could hit me, knowing that distance would most likely mean my death.

  During my judo lessons I had learned that, contrary to common sense, the closer you are to a blow, the less impact there is, and your chance of turning the situation around is increased exponentially. I had hated my martial arts class at first, but I’d stuck to it, and now I mouthed a silent prayer of thanks for my relentless sensei as I felt my guard’s knees buckle from the pressure.