“Ben stays here,” said Sophia.
Kane scowled at her. “He can lift, can’t he?”
“He can. But he stays here with me.”
Erikson slipped out of the back seat. He opened the front passenger door and pulled Cole out, hoisting him up on to his feet and holding him in position like he was a comatose drunk.
Kane joined him and they each looped one of Cole’s arms around their necks. The two headed off across the lot, using the taller vehicles as cover, the toes of Cole’s shoes scraping along the pavement.
Sophia watched them all the way, without a word.
***
They dropped Cole between two of the dumpsters on his back, his still pained, wide-eyed face looking blankly up at the stars. “What we supposed to do with him? We can’t just leave him here,” said Erikson.
“I hear you,” said Kane. “Someone’s going to find him, sooner or later. That crazy bitch is going to land us all in the shit.”
Both men heard a voice. Not from beside or behind them. But right inside their ears.
“Just so you know, gentlemen,” Sophia said. “I can see and hear everything you do now too. Do I have to tell you how?”
She paused to let that soak in for the men. They gazed at each other, incredulous.
“You’re about to see why no one is going to be finding any bodies,” she said.
There was a sound. A fizz. Or more of a sizzle maybe.
The skin on Cole’s face was burning. Turning red and then black very quickly, before bubbling and splitting. Kane kneeled to take a closer look. Cole’s eyeballs shriveled and sunk into his skull. Fluid pooled underneath his body and he began to shrink, sinking in on himself. His jacket and trousers hung. It was like his body was being eaten away from the inside out.
That’s when it hit both Kane and Erikson like a hammer.
That was exactly what was happening.
No wonder Sophia didn’t have any qualms dumping evidence in such a public place. All that would be left of Lucas Cole would be a pair of shoes and some wet clothes.
“The nanotech will only continue to function for a few seconds after the host expires. It’s a parasite, essentially,” said Sophia. “Once the host dies, it will dissolve and disappear into nothing. Same as your former employer.”
Thirty eye-opening seconds later, Cole was nothing but a puddle evaporating quickly in the heat of the Miami night.
***
Sophia had her mini computer screen angled so that Ben could see.
“I’ve seen some crazy stuff on the streets,” he said. “But nothing close to that.”
“There’s so much more where that came from,” Sophia chuckled, tapping the side of her head. “You know, what Cole told you about being able to make you visible like the rest of us? That was fiction.”
“I realize that now.”
“No, Ben,“ said Sophia, shaking her head with a smile. “It was fiction for Cole, because he hadn’t the first clue how to go about it. I, on the other hand, however, do.”
Ben saw himself as a stupid fish going for the bait. But he couldn’t stop himself from looking into Sophia’s face, trying to gauge in her eyes whether she was telling the truth.
As if he knew what to look for.
“I have more than just a clue,” she continued. “I’ve figured it out.”
Damn. Ben could feel his mouth caught nice and tight on the hook. He couldn’t wriggle free now. What was the point in trying? There was nowhere he could escape to and hide from her. Her message to Kane and Erikson went the same for him. Identical nanotech was in his bloodstream.
“You must be wondering, right now, how you’re supposed to trust me,” said Sophia.
What else could he say? “I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t.”
“Well I know I can trust you, Ben. Which is why I’m going to do this.” She tapped out a command on her wrist and showed him the screen of the tablet.
“What am I looking at?” he said.
“I’ve just deactivated your nanotransmitters.”
“I don’t feel any different.”
“You won’t,” she said.
Sophia switched to a display showing a map of the street they were on and the parking lot they were in. There were two small flashing discs tagged with labels bearing Kane’s and Erikson’s names.
But there was no sign of Ben’s.
“And what’s stopping you from turning them back on again?” he said.
“Until we get the opportunity and the means to completely remove them from your body… Nothing, I suppose. But it takes a damn sight longer to turn them on than it does to switch them off. They’re tiny computers. And as such, they each take a minute to boot up.”
There was a knock at the window.
Kane and Erikson were back.
30
The Prius parked up in a safe spot, its warranty in tatters, Powell had retreated to the corner of an all-night diner to regroup and wait for his pick-up.
Reflection was something he usually didn’t entertain, preferring always to deal with the here and now rather than dwell on the past. But it was hard to avoid it right now.
The past had come out of nowhere like a runaway train.
First, Ben.
Then, Sophia.
Both people he thought dead. Both back. All in the space of one day.
That runaway train was picking up speed.
It was going to hit something very soon.
The decision to move Project Clear from the desert facility into the swamplands of Louisiana had been his. The fear and paranoia around the program had increased. Powell thought the level of suspicion well placed. Cole had slipped through the net undetected, because no one even knew he had done anything outside the confines of the program when he departed. It was only when CCTV footage from the medical wing on the base was probed that his duplicity was discovered.
When the findings filtered through to Eve, she immediately shut up shop, refused to cooperate with the program any further. As far as she was concerned, she had been duped. Secret testing was going on without her knowledge. She felt she had been used and tricked.
It was hard to prove otherwise.
Not that he tried.
Crisis ensued.
Eve was not a prisoner. She had volunteered to join the program in the hope that research into her condition could somehow control or change it - she had stopped short of using the word ‘cure’. But now that her faith and trust in those running the program had been severely dented, there was a worry she would request to leave. There would have been no solid reason to hold her against her will. She had, after all, done nothing wrong or remotely illegal.
But they couldn’t just let her walk either, could they?
It wouldn’t be safe.
For her.
For anyone.
Innocent or not, Powell knew eyes very high up had seen Eve’s file. No way were they going to let her walk around unchecked, knowing the obvious applications she would present for espionage and terrorism. Whether against her will or not.
Eve had managed to live undetected alone in the outside world before her accidental discovery, but that could not be permitted now.
A leading light in the world of nanotechnology and its practical applications, Dr. Sophia Woods had been drafted in to Project Clear to develop a system of tagging Eve. The bright orange jumpsuit she had been stitched into so far had not helped convince her that she wasn’t a prisoner.
Woods engineered microscopic transmitters, dubbed ‘nanotransmitters’, which were designed to be injected into Eve’s bloodstream, where they would then distribute themselves around her body and render a computer-generated image of the host to observing monitors. Because Sophia’s work involved seeing how her nanotech reacted to and worked within Eve’s invisible blood, she had been working very closely with Cole.
He had taken a very keen interest in Sophia’s work.
Nanotechnology was a fast-emerging science, whi
ch he himself had dabbled in. He was very aware of the potential for it within his field and how it could be used to develop new treatments for vascular diseases. There were vast amounts of money to be made. Many of the scientists and doctors involved in Project Clear were at the forefront of their fields and held one or more lucrative pharmaceutical patents.
Lucas Cole was no exception.
Not that that meant he was content.
If Powell had learned one thing, it was that success fostered a hunger for even more.
When what Cole had done was discovered, an operation began immediately to apprehend him. But even given the considerable resources at their disposal, they had been unable to locate him.
Security was tripled surrounding Project Clear.
Given that Cole had so much access to Eve’s blood – he was its custodian – it was a safe assumption to make that he may well have had a certain amount of it still in his possession. If so, it was fathomable that he would be able to enlist people skilled enough to crack the encryption masking the transmitters’ signal.
A worst-case scenario was put forward.
What if the highly trained Special Forces soldiers Cole had managed to secret off the base were under his control? What if he hung the possibility of getting their lives back like a carrot in return for a favor?
Namely, kidnapping Eve.
Cole needed her for the success of his venture like he needed air to breathe.
‘His’ soldiers could steal on to the base and lie in wait while Cole got a fix on Eve’s position and altered the frequency of the signal the nanotransmitters operated on.
She would be immediately invisible to all but him.
Powell did consider this all a little bit farfetched, to say the least, until the unthinkable happened. The software Sophia engineered to manage the transmitters in Eve’s bloodstream crashed.
Eve was still visible to the system, but the power to go in and recalibrate or reset the signal was gone.
For security reasons, Project Clear was suspended immediately. An emergency plan was drawn up. The operational and science team was reduced from over fifty personnel to a core team of six, of which Major Jason Powell and Doctor Sophia Woods were put jointly in charge.
As far as the facility in the Nevada desert went, the very existence of Project Clear was purged from the records. All data was destroyed and any acknowledgement of the program was disavowed or just plain laughed at.
Accepting that returning to her former life was not an option, Eve agreed to be moved to another much more compact location over fifteen hundred miles away in the swamps of Louisiana.
With Cole in control of the nanotransmitters inside her, they were unable to alter the frequency they broadcast on or shut down the signal. In response, Sophia developed a static shield material with a variant of her own technology built in, designed to cloak the signal with one of its own.
A mobile holding cell was constructed out of the material, which was used to transport Eve to the new facility. Christened ‘The Nest’, its walls too were lined with the cloaking material.
The plan Eve agreed to, reluctantly, was that she would remain there until Cole was apprehended and all threats to her were eliminated. There, Sophia would lead the more concentrated team in continuing the research into Eve’s condition.
Soon though, Eve would not be the only focus of their work.
Seven very fast, very incident-packed months had passed since her discovery in Seattle.
Eve was heavily pregnant, and due to give birth any day.
Given the smaller team and the complicated nature of the birth, it was all hands on deck for the delivery. Powell himself was there, and bore witness to the event, in so far as it was possible.
He formed an immediate and lasting bond with the boy over the next few years.
Even after Sophia figured out a way to put the nanotransmitters out of commission, the team was on high alert at The Nest. Constantly vigilant, there were rigorous safety protocols.
Powell had selected the location of the facility.
Only he had any idea where it was situated.
Not even Colonel Crane, his commanding officer, was informed of its location. The rest of the team, Sophia included, had been flown in blind.
Another of Powell’s personal mantras: The fewer the links, the stronger the chain.
That chain had stayed strong for eight years, deep in the swamplands of Louisiana.
Until the hurricane arrived.
31
Three hours after the hurricane made landfall.
The Nest was operating on emergency power. All lines of communication were down, save for a prehistoric radio system. Without air conditioning, the humidity was overpowering, serving to add to an atmosphere that was already uncomfortable.
“They’re just too dangerous, Jason,” said Sophia. Her face was glistening under a sheen of sweat. Seemed like it was not solely a result of the heat. “You know I’m talking sense here.”
“I’m not sure you are, Sophia. We’re talking about a mother and her young child here.”
“You’ve gotten too close to them, Jason. You can’t see the wood for the trees anymore. I’ve been projecting,” she said. Sophia must have read the confusion in his face. “Analyzing. Forecasting.”
“Projections of what?”
“Worst case scenarios,” she said. “We’ve already established that the key to their invisibility lies in their genes. In their blood. And we already know, from what Cole did, that these genes are powerful enough to be introduced into another human host and initiate a mutation.”
She spun her laptop around to face Powell.
He had no idea where to start. “Help me out. What am I looking at here?”
“You remember I spoke to you about the pioneering work I was involved with, using nanotechnology to regulate and control bodily functions on a genetic level, specifically in transplant patients.”
“To help stop the body from rejecting the new organ?”
“I’ve been working to see if there was a way I could re-engineer the process to nullify the invisibility gene, to stop it from working on a molecular level.”
That got Powell’s attention. His mind had been on nothing but protecting Eve and Ben all this time. His heavily insulated, high-walled brand of protection though, had taken away whatever freedom they might have enjoyed otherwise, however dangerous that existence might have been. If what Sophia was talking about was possible, there was every chance they could lead normal lives. But there was always a but.
“I can’t make it work,” she said.
“What if I break cover, contact Crane?” he said. “We’re underground right now by design. But if we go in, your work will be in a much better place to progress. This is brilliant. Really, Sophia. It sounds like you’re on the cusp of something.”
“It won’t work,” she repeated. “It’s not the equipment. It’s the science. And shinier, more expensive equipment won’t change that.”
Powell leaned on the table on the palms of his hands, fingers fanned open. “You said they were dangerous? Eve and Ben. How do they fit into your projections?”
Sophia drew her hands down her face. “I’ve been thinking about those men. The soldiers Cole injected with that concoction. They had no idea what they were waking up to. I’ve seen what happens when intelligent animals are experimented on, against their will. They slowly go insane. I’m not sure the human mind is equipped to deal with the consequences of invisibility.”
“Eve seems to be doing okay,” Powell countered.
“Okay? It’s a hellish existence she has had to accustom herself to, to survive. If she is the only one of her kind out there, we should be grateful. What if the wrong type of person, but with the right type of psychological strength to deal with it, was given invisibility? I’m talking about honest-to-God predators here, Jason. Thieves. Murderers. Serial killers. Worse. These people wouldn’t have to lurk in the shadows anymore. They could do just
as they pleased in broad daylight, with no fear of getting caught, let alone reprisal. And those lowlifes are just for starters. Imagine if someone was to come along with their sights set much higher. World leaders? Governments? All of them would be at risk. Look how a handful of half-dead soldiers got off one of the most secure military bases in the world.”
“What is it you’re thinking, Sophia?”
“I’m thinking those soldiers are still alive. Without Eve and her blood supply on tap, they would have been too valuable to kill, even for someone trying to cover their tracks.”
“You think Cole is out there somewhere using their blood to produce more of his compound.”
“He would have tried, but it wouldn’t have lasted long. The blood would have become too ‘diluted’, if you follow me. And if he had been successful, we’d have heard something by now.”
She had a point.
“No,” she said quickly. “He needs Eve. And sooner or later that need is going to take him here.”
“Like you said, it’s been eight years, Sophia. If he hasn’t found us by now, he’s not going to.”
Even two stories beneath the surface, the storm could be heard raging overhead. The lights dimmed for a moment.
“You’re right about breaking cover,” said Sophia. “This whole place and everyone in it is going to get washed away if you don’t put a call in. But you think Cole doesn’t have someone on the inside, just waiting to pass him on that information? The same way he somehow managed to do what he was doing at Clear, without any help from someone within the program?”
Powell didn’t want to believe her, but he couldn’t dispute what she was getting at.
“You’re going to have to dial 911, Jason. And as soon as you do, it will be all over. For all of us.”
There was a sense of inevitability, of finality, in the way Sophia spoke. “You certainly have been thinking this over,” said Powell.
“No matter how you look at it, Jason, Eve and Ben are too dangerous to be kept alive. And if we don’t act right now, today, you’ll be sentencing them to a fate worse than death, in another top-secret lab somewhere with God knows who running the show.”
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