by Andria Stone
“I’m single, five-foot-two, probably weigh only half of what you do. When I got transferred up here, my brother made me promise I would always ‘be aware’ of my surroundings.”
“All right.” He stood to put on his jacket. “Wait a sec…I might need something.” He rummaged through the coat closet, grabbing a hockey stick. “Now we can go.”
“It’s around the corner, the last one on the left.” Eva let Mark lead but stayed only a step behind.
Mark slowed his approach, peering around the corner. A figure in a dark coat walked away from them. Something about him seemed out of place. Mark sprinted toward her quarters. The door stood ajar a few inches. He called after the man. “Hey! Wait up!” Then in French, “Hey! Attendez-vous!”
The man bolted. The race was on.
Mark sprinted after him with long, powerful strides. Within seconds, they both cleared the building. They ran on frozen ground, heading toward the dumpsters and the woods beyond. A couple more seconds at full speed, and Mark finally got close enough to lash out with the hockey stick. He hooked him around the neck with the blade.
The man fell.
Mark dove headfirst, arms outstretched, like heading for home base. He landed on top of him and they rolled with the impact. Mark swung a solid blow to the man’s solar plexus. A gut of granite. It didn’t faze him. That’s when Mark glanced up.
A ski mask.
He snatched it off with his left hand and threw a blazing right cross to his opponent’s bare face. What the hell? The second blow didn’t faze him either. That last rush of adrenalin blinded Mark to the gun pointed at him.
A glint of black metal. A flash of red energy. Pain. Mark was hit. Pure white-hot pain. He rolled off his opponent toward the dumpsters and grabbed his side.
The man sprang to his feet and sprinted away into the woods.
Eva Jackson came running up from behind him, hollering, “Are you all right? Oh, my god...you're bleeding."
Chapter 3
Mark opened his eyes. Things were fuzzy for a moment. He became aware of a medical halo on his forehead. Again? And where is my shirt? The image of a silver-haired man with faded blue eyes and a ruddy complexion came into focus.
“Ah, Sergeant,” the doctor said. “Your hockey player is coming around.”
The face of Sgt. Von Radach floated into view. “Captain, congratulations! You scored a goal. Got a little banged up doing it, but it still counts. Who knows, you might even get a battlefield promotion out of it.” The sergeant burst into laughter, flashing a mouthful of white teeth.
“Having nightmare…need to wake up.” Mark tried to move. Pain shot through every nerve ending in his body. It hurt to breathe. He opened first one eye then the other. “Where am I?”
Maj. Torance, the same doctor from CAMRI, now dressed in blue scrubs, responded, “You and Capt. Jackson were taken into protective custody. We shuttled you back to our combat support hospital on the Terran Military Command Base in North Dakota.”
“Is she—”
“Yes, she’s fine, and worried about you.”
“Can I—”
“Yes, you can see her, as soon as we’re finished here.”
“Everything hurts…my hand—”
“We’ll get to your hand later, Captain. Right now we’re dealing with your left shoulder. It’s dislocated, and you have a grazing wound on your ribcage, around number seven, also left side. Second-degree burns. We’ll take care of it in a minute. First I have to do this.” Torance snapped his fingers and Sgt. Von Radach body-slammed Mark, pinning him to the gurney. In an instant, the doctor had rotated his left shoulder blade, performing a spontaneous relocation.
“Oh, shit! That hurts!”
“Just a little scapular manipulation.” The doctor chuckled. “Now we’re going to do a couple of these.” He injected Mark with a cocktail of medical nanites, pain meds.
“That better not be more SP-27. I’ve already had my dose for the day.”
“Check your contract, Captain. It’s all legal.” The doctor smirked as he moved to the other side. “This is where you were shot. You were lucky. A little closer and it would have done a lot more damage.” He sprayed the flesh wound with antiseptic, applied a dressing. He nodded at the sergeant, who helped Mark sit up on the gurney so the doctor could adjust a sling around his left side.
“My hand?” Mark raised his right hand, focusing on the translucent cast from fingertip to forearm. “What’s wrong with my hand?”
The doctor studied Mark’s face intently. “You hit your opponent. Fractured the fourth and fifth metacarpal bones.”
“I saw his face!”
“We were waiting for that, Captain.” The sergeant smiled. “Deering, you can come in now.”
A young cyber unit specialist, dressed in fatigues, with black, spiky, green-tipped hair, drifted into the room. She carried a vid tablet, a handful of wires, and electrodes.
Mark felt woozy. He couldn’t help staring at her emerald-colored hair. “Is that regulation hair color?”
“For me it is,” she murmured, approaching him. “And is this regulation body art?” She traced her index finger over the intricate tribal tattoo encircling his right bicep.
“My brother and I got them before he went to Europa.”
Everyone knew there were no survivors of the Europa mission, so she changed the subject. “I’m sorry, Mark…I can call you Mark, can’t I? My name is Petra. Now, hold still while I attach these little beauties to your medical halo…and each one of these to your chest.” She backed up about three feet. “Then I’ll hook these pins into my screen…now you and I are going to create a 3-D holographic image of your attacker, and I’m going to record it on my screen.”
“Is this safe?” Mark felt queasy. “I mean they’ve just shot me full of drugs and nanites?”
“I promise I’ll be gentle.” She winked at him. “Now lay back, close your eyes and visualize the first image that comes to mind.”
***
Axel and the doctor watched the empty space between Petra and Mark. Within seconds, a hazy cloud coalesced, suspending in midair, it fused into a foot tall rear view of a man wearing a dark knee-length coat, with the collar turned up.
“Very nice, Mark. Now…let’s get a little closer.”
The image shimmered like desert heat while it grew life-sized.
“Good, Mark. Now…the contact.”
A black and yellow hockey stick jutted into the image from the right side, its blade caught the man around his neck.
“And what do you see next…?”
The scene continued to play out as it had in real life, until exactly one nanosecond past the point when Mark grabbed the ski mask off the man’s face.
“Stop!” the doctor ordered.
Petra’s fingers moved over her vid screen as she enlarged the image, and manipulated it 360 degrees. The hologram gelled into the head of a bald man with Asian features. Mark remained dead still on the gurney, eyes closed, as if in a trance.
“Continue,” the doctor ordered.
The incident resumed, showing the body blow, the right cross, and the ending moments after the shots were fired when Mark had lost consciousness.
“Slow–motion replay, with a close up of the assailant. Magnify five times.” The doctor watched intently. “Again, with a close up of the assailant. Magnify ten times.” Once more, the major scrutinized the hologram. “Thank you, we’re finished here. And please send a copy of that footage to me. I’ll need to forward it to HQ with my report.”
Petra nodded at the major and the sergeant. She patted Mark on the shoulder. “Excellent, Mark. Thank you.” She tucked the vid screen under her arm, unhooked all the wires, then left the room.
The doctor removed the medical halo, and helped Mark sit upright.
“I feel dizzy.” Mark blinked, stared at the translucent cast. “I broke my hand.”
“You hit a cyborg, Captain.” Axel and the doctor carefully watched Mark’s reaction.<
br />
“What?” Mark instantly became alert.
“And it’s not one of ours,” the doctor admitted.
“He was a…cyborg?”
“Yes, except we didn’t know it until we processed the DNA from your hand and discovered it was synthetic skin. Not human. That’s why we had you recall the event. To get up close and personal with your assailant. A lifelike combat model cyborg. He didn’t breathe. He wasn’t human. You’ve discovered the existence of a new enemy combatant, Captain. Since you saw him—he saw you. ”
***
In a hospital room at the far end of the hall, with an armed guard outside his door, Mark finally found some peace and quiet. The sparse, pale green room housed two beds, but only one patient. Mark was hooked up to several machines; the most important one monitoring the progress of his nanites. The prevailing antiseptic hospital aroma floated about nose level. He couldn’t find a comfortable spot on the bed. The sheets felt like sandpaper. Mark thumbed the remote to dim the overhead lights, pressed another to self-administer enough pain medication to take the edge off so he could relax and fall asleep. His head hurt, his hand, his side, his shoulder. Come to think of it, there wasn’t anything not hurting. He needed sleep, and when he awoke in the morning, everything would be normal again. No. It would not. That was wishful thinking.
One day—that’s all it had taken for his life to be turned upside down, again. The last time had been the day his family had received the news of his brother, Eric’s, death on the Terran Space Command’s mission to Europa. The distinction, this time, went to Dr. Beth Coulter. He began to cringe every time her name darted into his mind. Had she been a part of the puzzle, or was she the linchpin of the entire plot? To which, there was now the alarming addition of an Asian non-human cyborg. Could it be a prototype—an exemplar—or were there more? And how many? Did all of them have Asian features—that would certainly be indicative of their origin—or were they multiracial? Too much brain function—he had to shut down for a bit.
The cyber specialist cruised into his room. “Hey, Mark, remember me, Petra Deering? Just came to check on you. See how you’re doing. Sometimes there’s a delayed reaction to the neural interface. How do you feel?”
“I’m going to feel a little blitzed in about a minute.” Mark smiled for the first time since this morning.
“Well, maybe—maybe not. Anyway, you’ve got company coming. Three nurses are on their way here. I accidentally let it slip that I worked on a real live Viking. Big, good-looking blond with Old World body art. I said the poor guy had a broken hand and a bad shoulder.” She giggled. “From their reaction, I don’t think they get to see many like you. So I doubt you’ll get to feed yourself for the next couple of days. They’ll probably want to hook you up to a catheter, too.” She snickered. “Think I’ll stay and watch.”
“No, no. No catheter. I’d have to be unconscious. I’m feeling better already.”
“Okay, but I’m not the one you have to convince. Besides, I brought you something.” She moved closer, held up a small tablet with an earpiece, lightly placed them on his bare chest. “Thought you might like to listen to some sounds, not music, but waves and wind, outdoorsy stuff. You seem like the type. It might help you relax. Those neural interfaces can be a bitch. I’ve seen people jacked up for forty-eight hours or more after a session.”
“Thanks a lot, Petra. Very sweet of you.” Mark’s cast caused him to fumble with the small device, but he managed. Soon the sounds of nature were floating through his mind. He closed his eyes. “Sounds like home.”
“I thought so.” She nodded, smiling. She glanced at the neural readout patterns on the screen next to his bed. “If you can’t sleep, at least you can chill.” She skimmed her finger over his tattoo. “I’ll be back in the morning.”
Deering passed the guard outside Mark’s door. “Don’t let any nurses in there. I don’t care what they try to bribe you with.”
***
The sergeant had wrestled with a gnawing, gut feeling all day. He kept trying to ignore it, but it wouldn’t go away. He needed to head for his quarters and finish his reports; instead he went looking for the doctor. Axel found him, alone at a table in the deserted mess hall, slumped over a cup of coffee. Axel brought a fresh one over, sitting opposite him. “Been a train wreck today, huh, sir?”
“Yes…and it’s not over quite yet, Sergeant.” The doctor looked up, pale blue eyes, now bloodshot, the day’s aftermath a heavy weight on his shoulders. He reached over, and put a hand on Axel’s arm. “I need to tell you Scarlotti didn’t make it. There’s no way to sugarcoat it. The blast impact was lethal. They tried like hell, but his injuries were too extensive; ruptured spleen, punctured lung, too much internal damage to repair. We can do so much more now. But we still can’t bring them back from the dead. I’m truly sorry, son.”
Axel’s shoulders sagged under the shared burden of the news. A searing rush of anger grew in his chest. He wanted to jump up, grab the table, and throw it across the room. Anything except sitting here feeling lousy. However, they sat for a while without speaking, both staring at nothing. Axel stewed in a toxic combination of remorse and revenge, while the doctor clearly had despair and melancholy etched in the lines on his face.
“Both Scarlotti and I were from Phoenix,” Axel said. “It’s a big place. We didn’t meet until he transferred into my squad last year. He wanted to be a soldier. And he was a damn good one. He could tell a joke. He loved country music. I feel like I let him down because I didn’t do more to save him.”
“Stop right there.” The doctor slammed his hand on the table. “I understand all about survivor’s guilt, but none of this was your fault—the terrorists did this. Everyone who wears armor acts like they’re invincible. But no one is. We had him on a transport within minutes. They took him into surgery the moment he landed. His injuries were severe. He didn’t survive. We’re all headed in that direction. Some of us sooner rather than later.”
“I hear you, Major. I understand, and I’ll deal with it.” Axel scraped his fingers back and forth though his short hair for a moment. “Here’s the thing, sir, my enlistment ends in thirty-seven days. I was almost ready to re-up. I want—need—to be part of this operation. I heard Cyber’s already calling it Black Hat, an old earth term for a bad hacker. I’ve been in law enforcement for eight years. Four here in the Tactical Assault Unit. Four in the Phoenix Police Force.”
Axel paused, rubbed the stubble on his jaw and continued. “I have a friend who was in the NSA. He’s been after me to join his company, a private investigation firm, sometimes bounty hunters, sometimes undercover corporate work. It didn’t appeal to me, until now. If there’s any way I could transfer, even if it’s lateral, to another unit in the TMD, to work on this operation, I’d re-up in a second. I’d be in your debt, Maj. Torance, if you could speak to Colonel Harben on my behalf.” Axel stood, as did Torance. They shook hands.
“I understand your motivation, Sergeant. I’ll see what I can do.”
“Thank you, Major.” Axel saluted, waited for the doctor’s nod. He left for his quarters.
***
Torance had been in an early, albeit lengthy meeting with the Base Commander, Colonel Wayne Harben. The major respected the colonel’s rank, although he did not care for his heavy-handed style, believing it showed a lack of skill.
Two carafes of coffee, and a tray of blueberry muffins sat in the middle of their conference table. Also present were Monroe, the ranking officer of the previous day’s Tactical Assault Group, plus his superior, Major Sydney Buchanan. Joining the officers were two support staff cyber specialists, Ohashi and Deering. They supplied copies of all the pertinent vids, and statements, including the holographic images from Warren’s encounter.
Harben elected to begin with facts; direct, clear, concise. Next, they dissected the personal histories, employment backgrounds of the three scientists, plus their own Tactical Assault NCO. The two cyber specialists were dismissed. Things got interesting
when theories, hypotheticals, conjectures came into play. Torance offered candid medical opinions and perhaps a little practical psychology on the people in question.
After a rather contentious discussion, an agreement had been reached. Monroe got the short end of the stick on several counts; a suspected spy had disappeared, an officer had been attacked, and a member of his platoon had been killed. He was peeved at being overruled and outranked. A vid link was established with Dimitrios at TMD Headquarters. He was briefed. The general’s rancor of yesterday settled into a smoldering rage now that the scope of this operation had widened to encompass three strategic theaters of operations: Combat, Scientific, and Cyber. He approved their decisions, promised to advise General Yates, Lunar Military Defense Command, of the situation. Furthermore, he would coordinate with all respective agencies, procure whatever resources were necessary to apprehend Beth Coulter and locate the as yet unidentified non-human combatant.
Torance and Harben left for the hospital to give the two scientists their new orders, while Monroe and Buchanan headed back to her office.
***
Mark felt embarrassed by all the attention the two nurses were showing him when Torance and a stocky, balding colonel breezed into his room.
“Ladies,” the doctor said. “Will you give us the room, please? And have Capt. Eva Jackson join us in here ASAP.” He checked Mark’s readouts. “And how do you feel this morning?”
Mark smiled. “My shoulder and side are much better than I expected. This is the first time I’ve experienced nanites. It’s amazing.” He raised his encased right hand. “Just can’t tell what’s going on in here.”
“Well, I’m glad to hear it. Another day or so in the cast and you’ll be better than new.”
Eva Jackson rushed in. She stopped in her tracks at seeing two officers in uniform standing next to Mark’s bed.