Mr. Clear

by Stewart, Graham

  Tennant sat facing Powell, eyes almost closed. The man’s knuckles couldn’t have been whiter if the actual bones were showing. Way he was going, it wouldn’t be long before he cut off the blood supply to his own fingers. He wouldn’t be much good on a keyboard with pins and needles in his hands.

  “Never been in a helicopter before?” Powell shouted to him.

  Tennant’s head panned around lightning fast, like an owl’s, his eyes suddenly wide. He nodded his head, but only just, as if nervous that a bigger movement would bring them crashing down out of the sky. “Yeah, but not in anything as fast or as low to the ground as this.”

  “You’ll get used to it,” said Powell, putting a reassuring hand on the tech’s shoulder. “The thing is, I need you to get used to it now.” He pointed at the laptop Tennant had brought with him and the tech nodded, taking a deep breath and doing his best to focus. He tapped the trackpad with his finger and the screen brightened, where it had been conserving battery with a dimmed display.

  “Our guys, I think they’re on the move again,” he said.

  “Show me.”

  Tennant handed the computer to Powell. The two red pulsing circles that had departed the disused missile silo had headed north, stopped briefly, then continued along the same path, joining a highway. Sometime later they stopped again. Switching to a satellite image of the area had revealed it to be a rest area for big rig drivers and buses packed with tourists.

  Now the two men were on the move again, back in the direction they had come from. Whatever it was, or whoever it was they were looking for, they had found it.

  “We need to take a look,” said Powell. He leaned into the cockpit, putting the screen in front of the pilot. “How far are we off this point?”

  The pilot took a couple of glances at the screen and caught his bearings. “Ten minutes out.”

  “That’ll bring us too far off course,” said Crane. “We don’t have time.”

  “They didn’t head all the way out there to stock up on Mountain Dew and Cheeze Balls,” said Powell.

  Crane didn’t argue.

  The pilot was as good as his word. They were on the ground in less than the ten minutes he had estimated, the chopper setting down across the road from a truck stop so big, it could have passed for a small town in some states.

  Allowing a trio of semis to roar past, Powell and Crane jogged across the two-lane. A state trooper moved into their path, hands perched on his gun belt, looking at them through mirrored shades. Powell half expected him to hawk a stream of tobacco spit at his feet.

  The trooper raised a hand and Powell raised his identification in reply. “Slow me down and I’ll have you transferred you out to Alaska so fast you’ll get whiplash.”

  The policeman swallowed and took off his sunglasses.

  A small crowd had gathered, standing on tiptoe, looking curiously across to where the experimental chopper had set down.

  “And don’t let any of them cross that road, or take any pictures,” Crane growled. “Anything shows up on the internet, and not only will I have you transferred to Alaska, but it will be minus a job.”

  The trooper nodded again and began herding everyone back on to the forecourt.

  Powell went off to survey the area. Whatever Cole’s guys had gotten up to here, it hadn’t disturbed anyone. All of the people were doing as they should. Filling their tanks, stuffing their faces. The only thing that seemed to be capturing their concentration was him.

  One of the dispersing crowd members, a middle-aged man in a tattered, red baseball cap, with a belly way out of proportion to the rest of his skinny frame, lingered. “Regular little military tattoo we got going on here today.”

  Powell stopped. “Oh yeah?”

  “You just missed your buddies. Tore off out of here like the Devil’s own bats out of hell. Couple of stony faced sons of bitches. Much like yourselves. No offence.”

  “None taken,” said Powell. “There were only two of them?”

  “Ah-huh. They were here looking for someone though. I watched ‘em go into one of the RVs.”

  “Did they find whoever it was?”

  “Don’t think so. They left empty-handed.”

  “There was no one with them?”

  “Not that I could see,” he said.

  “Which RV did they go into?”

  The guy raised his finger to point, thinking about trying to direct the three men to it. “I’ll show you.” He led them through a mass of near identical motorhomes. How the hell was this old geezer going to pick out the right one?

  Then Powell saw how.

  The one they stopped next to was a twenty-year-old Winnebago wallpapered in stickers and decals. Some proclaimed that we were not alone, others that the truth was out there.

  “Thanks for your help,” Powell said to the old guy.

  The guy in the red cap waited a second, saw that Powell wasn’t going to move until he did, then slowly made himself scarce.

  “How you want to play this?” asked Crane.

  “Directly,” said Powell, prowling up the side of the Winnebago. He tested the door handle into the accommodation area. At first he thought it was unlocked, but then saw that the spring in the handle mechanism had been shot out.

  Powell unholstered his weapon and pulled the door open slowly.

  He paused.

  Not a sound.

  No voices.

  No movement.

  No reaction from within.

  He threw the door open with a loud rusty creak and moved in quickly, sweeping the interior. Crane came close behind. They found themselves in the main living area, where bench seating stretched all the way from the door to a kitchenette and a large, well-loved table, next to an unmade foldout bed. There were posters on every available surface mirroring the same content as that of the crap on the outside of the vehicle. Aliens. UFOs.

  There was no mistaking the immediate telltale smell in the air. Cordite. Shots had been fired recently. There was something else though. Another odor. A coppery one that sometimes went hand in hand with the smell of gunpowder.

  “Blood,” said Crane.

  “What could Cole’s guys have wanted here?” said Crane.

  “Witnesses?” Powell said. “Unlucky UFO spotters who had been poking around at the missile silo?”

  “So where are the bodies?” said Crane.

  There was only one other room in the RV, the door of which was ajar enough for Powell to see inside. The bedclothes were half on the bed, half on the floor. Looked like someone had jumped up when the front door had been breached.

  Crane started into the room, but caught his foot and tripped on something. He knelt and put the palm of his hand to the floor. “It’s wet.” He turned his hand over. “And invisible.”

  “Blood,” said Powell. He reached down to see what had made Crane stumble and touched human skin. Still warm, but only just.

  It was a leg. He traced along the thigh with his hand and quickly found the rest of the body. A man. A naked invisible man with several gunshot wounds.

  Crane followed his lead. After very delicately feeling their way around the cabin, they discovered another three bodies all in similar circumstances.

  All executed.

  Some of the men had old scars that Powell only discovered when he examined them. He recognized them immediately for what they were. Gunshot and shrapnel injuries long healed. These men were not UFO spotters. They were soldiers.

  “The ghosts,” said Powell.

  Crane was silent for a moment. Powell knew what he was feeling. These had once been his men. And just the way Powell had done, Crane had to put his emotions to one side and press on with the task at hand.

  The older man heaved one of the bodies onto his back. “We can’t leave them here.”

  ***

  Back in the air, with the remains of the ghosts stowed in the back, Crane said, “Cole was taking a hell of a chance not injecting them with tracking chips.”

  “I d
on’t know. Seems more to me like a calculated, educated risk,” said Powell. “We could have discovered the frequency they were operating on and used it to root him out. What bothers me more is why they were making a break for it today, of all days. When we’re so coincidentally close to finding them.”

  “Those two guys we’re tracking are definitely headed back where they came from,” said Tennant.

  “Pilot,” said Crane. “Take the scenic route. No point being hidden from radar if they’re able to see us coming. Keep us out of visual range of that vehicle.”

  “Where do you reckon the, em, ghosts were headed?” asked Tennant. He had said it absentmindedly, more concerned with tracing the movement of the red circles on his screen.

  But it was a good question.

  Now Powell thought about it, why had the men stuck together the way they did? Prisoners who make it outside, the first thing they do is split up to better their chances of getting away. A group, even an invisible group, is easier to track. The only logical reason for them to be travelling together was that they were on their way to the same place.

  They were soldiers following orders.

  But whose orders?

  39

  On screen, Sophia watched as Kane climbed out of the Land Rover and stretched. He stood there and watched Erikson haul something out of the back. Something invisible, and something heavy, which he slung over his shoulder.

  Sophia released the door locks and allowed the men enter the reception area and then the elevator. She turned away from the console and sat on the edge of the desk waiting for the elevator to descend.

  Kane entered the room without a word. Sophia watched him as Erikson followed, crossing to the examination table she had prepped in the center of the room.

  “Where are the others?” she asked.

  Kane ignored her, filling a paper cup with water and taking a long slug. He wiped his mouth with his sleeve.

  “Dead,” he said.

  “Dead. How?”

  “I made a call. Five highly trained, completely invisible soldiers,” he said. “They were too dangerous to transport for two men, one of who was going to be tied up flying. I made a call-“

  “-which was not yours to make,” Sophia finished. It was the first time Ben had seen Sophia visibly annoyed. “I thought my instructions were clear. What about the bodies?”

  “What about them?” said Kane. “No one can see them. So no one’s going to find them.”

  “If only things were that simple. Go back and get those bodies, Kane. Now. And bring them back here. The way I asked you the first time, if it’s no trouble.“

  The look he returned her way brimmed with pure contempt. But it wasn’t as if he could do anything about it. The threat of what she could do with the gadget around her wrist was hard to forget.

  “I’m going to need Erikson’s assistance here,” she added. “So you’ll just have to manage on your own.”

  Kane left as Erikson strapped the unconscious ghost down to the table.

  “He give you much trouble?” Sophia asked. “The soldier, I mean.”

  “He was lively. Put it that way,” said Erikson. “At least with the straps on, you’ll know where he is.”

  “I think we can do a little better than that,” she said, attaching a drip to the soldier’s arm. The bag contained a blue colored liquid.

  “What’s that?” said Ben.

  “Nothing special. Just saline. Good old-fashioned salt-water solution. I dare say the guy could do with the hydration after the big day he’s had.”

  “Why’s it blue?” asked Erikson.

  “So everyone can see him,” said Ben.

  “Correct,” smiled Sophia, loosening the valve on the bottom of the bag. The solution made its way down the tube into the soldier’s bloodstream, coursing through his veins, creating a bizarre wireframe rendition of him, which did not require implants to see, and that became more and more detailed with every beat of the man’s heart.

  Sophia loaded up a shot of adrenaline, and plunged the needle into the man’s chest. He woke with a gasp and moved to sit up, but his binds held him in place. He tensed and dropped back to the board, breathing hard and fast.

  “Welcome back, soldier,” said Sophia.

  The man swallowed.

  “I thought we’d lost you there for a second.”

  He reared against the straps holding him in place again, raising his head enough to see his appearance. “Jesus, what have you done to me?”

  Sophia put her palm on his forehead to calm him.

  “We’ve done nothing. I’m afraid it seems to be a side effect of the compound Doctor Cole administered. It manifested while you were unconscious.”

  The soldier looked around the room. “Where are my men?”

  He didn’t know.

  “They’re being attended to elsewhere,” she said.

  Ben wondered why she didn’t just tell the soldier his appearance was down to the dye, or why the men were dead. What did she hope to gain?

  “What’s happened to Cole?” the soldier asked.

  “He’s gone,” she said.

  “As in dead?” he asked.

  Sophia didn’t answer him. But she could see him reading between the lines.

  “Really?” he said. There was a smile in his voice. The news did not exactly disappoint him.

  “Really,” said Sophia. “I’m sorry these men were so heavy-handed with you. There was no call for it. We’re all on the same side... Sergeant?”

  “Yes,” the soldier replied. “Naul. Robert Naul, Sergeant First Class. Crane send you?”

  Sophia answered fast. “That’s right, Sergeant Naul. Things have moved fast, much faster than we thought they would. Crane made a last minute change of plan. So last minute that we weren’t able to notify you in time. You had already flown the coop by the time we arrived.”

  The soldier coughed. “What kind of change?”

  “Colonel Crane has revised his order. He thinks it’s way too much of a risk to have you and your squad travelling on the open road, unprotected.”

  “Crane didn’t think that before. This morning was the first time we heard from him since Clear. He woke us remotely, and told us he’d deactivated all the security systems, to get the hell out, that Cole had sold us out, that the place was about to be compromised.

  “He gave me a number. Told us to get to a phone and call him and then he’d give us further instruction. That’s why we headed to the truck stop. Don’t you know all this?”

  The soldier tested the straps on his wrists. “Are these really necessary? Why didn’t Crane just have you take us to him? Instead of bringing us back here, when the place is about to be…” Realization dawned. “You were the ones he was warning us about.”

  “I assure you, Sergeant. That was more for his safety than yours,” said Sophia.

  “I don’t follow. Who are you people?” he said.

  “We’re here to make things right.”

  “Right? Who said there was anything wrong?”

  “There was no helicopter crash, was there?” said Sophia. “Back at Clear.”

  The soldier didn’t answer.

  “It was all a hoax,” she said. “Engineered by Crane.”

  “But what you said earlier,” said Ben.

  “That was what I thought,” said Sophia. “What they wanted us to think.”

  “Who said that?” said Naul.

  Without the necessary optical implants, the soldier couldn’t see Ben. Sophia marveled at how the men had gotten by out in the field that day, how they had made it as far as they did. New to the world of the unseen they must have existed as nothing more than voices in each other’s ears. Sticking together was the only way to avoid becoming separated.

  And it had been their undoing.

  “I’m sorry, allow me,” said Sophia.

  While Kane and Erikson were gone, she had discovered sunglasses, which Ben informed her had lenses electronically modified to see in th
e same way the optical implants did. She fixed a pair to the soldier’s face. The man gasped when he saw that Ben was right in front of him.

  “Cole give you a dose too?” he asked.

  “Not Cole, no,” said Ben.

  “Then who?” said Naul.

  “The man upstairs, I guess,” he answered. “I was born like this.”

  There was a pause.

  “You’re the original,” said Naul. “The one Cole was looking for all this time.”

  “And there I was, thinking you were being held against your will the whole time,” said Sophia. “You guys signed up for this.”

  “We’re part of a special detachment put together to test new weapons and tactics. Afghanistan, Iraq, whatever hellholes soldiers get sent into next, we’re tired seeing our brothers and sisters getting mowed down. Whatever about all the big shiny toys we got, on the ground with the animals they don’t count for nothing. We’ve lost our edge. This will give us it back. And then some.”

  “Was it worth it? All the years you’ve been cooped up down here, hidden away from your family,” said Ben.

  “The U.S. Army is my family. And anything worth having comes at a price.”

  “Sounds like you paid for it with your sanity,” said Ben.

  “Cole told us what Project Clear started out as. That it was all about trying to make you visible,” said Naul. “That what’s brought you out here?”

  “You’re what brought us out here,” said Ben. “We came to try and help you.”

  Naul chuckled and looked back at Sophia. “It was a stupid move bringing us back here, lady. We’re supposed to check in with Crane again. When he figures out we were captured, this is the first place he’s going to come looking.”

  “You know what? I hope he does. I’ve got some questions I would really like him to answer for me,” said Sophia.

  “So what now?” said Naul.

  “Now?” said Sophia. “Now I think I’m going to let you go.”

  Naul didn’t know what to say to that as Sophia brought the wrist tablet up and punched in a command.

  “Sophia?” Ben said. “What are you doing?”