Hypersubjects

by Ainsley Komper

  “They are getting closer, you will never make it.”

  “At some point, I thought you felt something for me and part of this trip to see you was to make sure you did not.”

  The boats were very close and a helicopter started hovering over them.

  “I am sorry.”

  “I was not a child, so you did not trick me, you are not God, so you did not make me. All in all, what you did was messed up, but I thank you anyway.”

  Lark jumped to the sea and disappeared in the middle of the dark night sea. For a few hours, they thought he died down there because there was no trace of him. Several ships from different governments and organisations arrived there to collaborate with the search until he was spotted a few of hours later by one of the many helicopters while swimming south, probably towards Algeria and actually not that far from land. He did not offer that much resistant as many ships, helicopters and military personnel arrived, all heavily armed. Everyone around was briefed of how dangerous he could be, so he was restrained from head to toe and sedated before being shipped on a plane to London. Lilli was informed by the institute and summoned to the headquarters in England not only to be debriefed but to oversee his processing. She was actually confused by Lark’s behaviour and couldn’t make up her mind about what he was trying to do. While on the plane, she went through a preliminary hypothesis that revolved around information he wanted to steal from her research and used his escape to distract the attention from the hacking program he installed at her place. This would make sense because he needed her password and the equipment up and running. However, there was something weird about the whole strategy because he could have done it differently, perhaps remotely or maybe assaulting her at night without showing himself up the club and do that whole charade of how much he cared about her. He knew she would have been watched, even after all those months following his escape. Perhaps that is what he wanted, being seen by whoever was keeping an eye on her. It was almost a year and they were reducing resources dedicated to Lili’s watch, but still. Or maybe he knew and gave them time to be alerted, organised themselves and go after him while leaving the program running at her house. But why would he want them to know? He knew as well that it was an uphill battle in the sea and even back to land in case he made it because they would have been ready for him.

  At the institute, she met Velia Morant who was as confused as Lili.

  “Are you sure you blocked him from his neural enhancement?”

  “I am not anymore, I thought I did.” Lili replied.

  “At the sea, the helicopters searching for him were equipped with cutting-edge technology tracking systems, some of them specialised in detecting underwater activity.”

  Velia projected the recording of one the helicopter’s tracker.

  “Did he swim faster than a normal human being?”

  “I don’t know about faster but definitely deeper.”

  In the recording, the tracking system showed the moment when he jumped underwater.

  “This system can only track up to 25 meters deep.

  His figure is followed underwater although he doesn’t move much.”

  “He stays in the same place.”

  “No, he is just going deeper. The world record for going underwater without diving gear is 214 meters, but in those cases, the diver gets assistance from an external force like a chain or something.”

  “He disappears from the screen.”

  “He went really fast on his own and we covered the area with four helicopters like that but we couldn’t find him in a five-kilometre radius.”

  “Where was he found exactly?”

  “The distance between Ibiza and Algeria is around 267 kilometres.”

  “Where did you find him?”

  “You guys managed to navigate from Ibiza around 85 kilometres or so.”

  Velia projected a map of the area in question.

  “I was told he was not far from the coast.”

  “He only missed it from 10 kilometres.”

  She circled the site.

  “So, he was definitely fast.”

  “Five times faster than a healthy human being.”

  “Don’t you think he could have gone to Spain or France instead?”

  They left the office and walked into a corridor.

  “We have more resources in Europe and he knows it.”

  “But I blocked him, he wouldn’t have the strength to do all of this and if he managed to dose himself so quickly, it means he had access to equipment we did not see or found.”

  “Maybe he threw it to the sea but anyhow, you were having doubts and I want to know why.”

  They arrived at a glass window where they could see him chained to a wall by his wrists.

  “Well, he knew when I was lying, all the time.”

  “How do you know that? He may have been bluffing.”

  “True, but he was so sure of everything he said, he was not like that.”

  “He has changed but also we have another possibility.”

  “That his enhancement is permanent.”

  “Or at will.”

  “If so, he would have been able to release himself quickly.”

  “Hey, girls, how’s everything?” Lark asked loudly while looking at them through the glass.

  “Can he see us?”

  Escorted by two guards, Velia came in.

  “Come on, sweetie, come in and play some track for me like in Ibiza.”

  Velia noticed that the glass on the inner side was a mirror.

  “Interesting, she was right.”

  Lili came in.

  “Maybe you have limitations on what you can do.”

  “Maybe you are right, maybe you are not.”

  “What do you want?” Velia asked.

  “I wanted to swim but you guys said playtime was over.”

  “You cannot keep running forever. Your friends couldn’t.”

  “Could I see them?”

  “Do you think I would be so stupid and have you all together at the same facility?”

  She brought out a tablet and showed live feeds of each one of them.

  “They are all in different countries.”

  “How can you handle Mercy? I mean, if you are allowed to tell me.”

  “She is in an isolated facility, receives food packages by drones and it is assisted by automatic devices. There are no humans in a ten-mile radius. In the extreme case she requires attention, we sedate her with sleeping gas.”

  Velia showed him security camera footage of Mercy at her facility.

  “Awesome, you found a bigger cage.”

  “You are going to be processed and sent to a special facility.”

  “I have a request to make.”

  “And what would it be?”

  “Give me a couple of days.”

  “You are not in the condition to ask for anything.” Velia replied.

  “I can give you another subject.”

  “Really? Who?”

  “In a couple of days, I know she will try to rescue me.”

  “Fine, we’ll be ready and you won’t be here.”

  “She will know if I am not at this facility.”

  “Who is she?”

  “Mercy found her.”

  “Why are you giving her up?”

  “In exchange for better conditions in my captivity.”

  “I am not convinced.”

  “And I am tired of running.”

  “I need to check that with the board.”

  They both left the room with a feeling of nervousness.

  “Do you think he is telling the truth? Lili asked.”

  “Of course not. He is up to something.”

  While Velia was at meetings the rest of the day, Lili went through all the records on his case and decided to expand his search by studying the ones of the rest. It was in one of those files where she found it. SETBACK DAY was mentioned by Iker in one of his chats with another inmate and it is supposed to happe
n at some point during September. It was an attack in London by Mercy, Ciana, Taran, Lark and Braith. That was it, this was the reason why he was here on purpose. When she arrived at Lark’s holding room, Velia was talking to him while some members of the board were looking at them through the glass. She interrupted their chat abruptly.

  “SETBACK DAY! Is it today? Tomorrow?”

  “What is that?” He replied.

  “I’ve seen the information Lili but they are all neutralised.”

  “Tomorrow, I will spot her to you at 8 AM. I will need a live feed of Oxford Circus Underground Station.”

  “Just give us a description of her.”

  “I can’t. I will be able to see her, not you.”

  “Is this a trick of yours?”

  “How? Just give me 24 hours and a feed from the platforms. If you get her, I will get my benefits, if not, I am screwed.”

  Lili was not as convinced as Velia and spent several hours trying to figure if there was something missing. At night, Velia arrived at Lili’s office.

  “I don’t like this.”

  “Me neither. Everything he has done has failed so far. The hacking of my files did not finish.”

  “His escape too.”

  “It is like he is baiting us for something, but what?”

  “It doesn’t matter. We have all the government agencies support and international bodies too. They are all in high alert for Oxford Circus and here.”

  “What if we use other methods of interrogation?”

  “We tried but he is not responding to pain and has disabled all the guards.”

  “So, it means he enhances at will.”

  Velia received an alert on her tablet.

  “What is it?”

  “They found a file. His whole plan was never to steal anything but to plant something instead.

  “He used my connection to the institute as a back door?”

  “Indeed, but the files have been removed and isolated in a hard drive.”

  “You think it’s a virus?”

  “Whatever it is, it has been encrypted. My guys are working on that.”

  “I don’t like this.”

  “It is late now. I’ll keep you posted.”

  Lili slept little, thinking of all the possible outcomes tomorrow. She was sure he will try to escape or maybe they will all try to escape. Guilt had consumed her all this time in the way she treated Lark but her choices about him were the right ones for her career. Even back in the day they broke out, she helped him out of guilt and of course, she couldn’t risk him to talk about their little experiments in his free time. Lark never revealed them and the institute never found any evidence of those experiments. When she arrived at Lark’s holding room, the members of the board were observing the monitors installed in front of him. Velia joined her just in time to see the rush hour at the six platforms.

  “So? What are we looking at? It is almost 8.” Velia said.

  “I presumed you have found the file I planted in the system and the cybersecurity team have been trying to decrypt it.”

  “We are not here for that. Give us the subject and we’ll talk about it after.”

  “I told you that I will spot her while looking at the feed, not that she will be there.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She is here. It is Lili.”

  They both looked at each other.

  “All her information is in the file I planted. It will automatically open now. We hired a bunch of PIs to dig dirt in all of our handlers to see if there was something we could use against them. Lili was the only one with a secret. It turned out she has a condition called Grey Matter Heterotopia.”

  “Is that true, Lilli?”

  “You bastard!”

  “It was discovered by accident when she was a little girl in Dublin but was not reported here. She has almost no side effects, except headaches here and there. During an accident, the headaches intensify but also some sporadic bursts of euphoria.”

  “You hacked my diaries!”

  “There were lovely, very moving. She has experimented with intense sounds and vibrations over her own brain as therapy, that is how everything started.”

  “Why didn’t you say anything to us?” Velia asked Lili.

  “Oh, she was scared of you. She knows she is more valuable as a subject than as a scientist. I mean, no disrespect, she is a great scientist but there are hundreds of thousands like her in the world. Subjects, no more than a hundred and you guys are hunting them down like sick dogs, yours truly included.”

  “That doesn’t change a thing about her.” Velia said.

  “Really? She will be on the institute radar from now on. Her freedom is over, like mine. It doesn’t matter what Velia says here, you know it is over.”

  “What is this?” Lili said pointing at the platform.

  In the feed of one of the platforms, seconds after a train has left, someone steps down to the tracks. The people are scared and urged him not to do it.

  “A suicide? That’s what you wanted to show us?”

  The same was occurring on another platform and, suddenly, on each one of the six platforms, people were on the tracks. They positioned themselves carefully so they managed to avoid touching the tracks.“Come on! Talk to us! Why Oxford Circus?”

  An assistant enters the room and whispers something on Velia’s ear. Then a security officer arrived.

  “This is happening in several Underground stations.” He said and then received a phone call but hung up after a few seconds.“So far, we have reports of 25 of them.”

  In the feed, a train arrived and pushed the break just in time to avoid hitting the person on the tracks who walked a few meters by the tracks to save himself.

  “A coordinated suicide attack?” Lili asked.

  The security officer pushes Lark against the wall but then he defends himself by throwing the officer like a soft toy against the door.

  “This is SETBACK DAY.” Lark said.

  “The coordinated attacked on London.” Lili replied.

  “All of you are in prison. There is no way you can coordinate anything.”

  “Mercy programmed thousands of people to do this. Alarms in buses, trains, airports. People are going to open emergency hatches on planes a few seconds before take-off, others positioned themselves in the middle of tracks, in the middle of the streets, activate fire alarms in buildings, reporting terrorist attacks at every landmark and neighbourhood, the whole city will go into chaos.”

  “It is happening now.” Lili said while showing images on her phone.

  “Why?” Velia asked.

  “Many reasons back there, you know, making a statement and all of that but now, well, it will help me to run away. Everyone has more pressing matters with the whole city in chaos.”

  “It will never work, even if her part was done, the other subjects are in jail.”

  “Taran’s part was to design a hacking attack. That's what I actually planted from your place. I am not that good. We needed a back door.”

  “But nothing was stolen or deleted.”

  “No, but you guys did some movements that flagged the locations where you have the back-ups.”

  “We need to alert them now.”

  “Good luck.” Lark said.

  They both tried to leave but Braith released himself and grabbed Velia with the chain.

  “Not so fast. Braith used his contacts with the underground world for the next phase of the operation and you need to be here for that.”

  Lili ran away from them but one of the members of the board grabbed her.

  “The places where you have the back-ups have been attacked with EMPs. All the information has been wiped out.”

  In that moment, a huge blast went through the whole building leaving Lilli disorientated. She managed to walk to her office and gather her belongings. The phones and computers were done. It was probably an Electromagnetic pulse as well. Her car won’t work, public transport was down,
the police and the army were busy, it was chaos everywhere. Lark was permanently enhanced and loose in the building taking Velia with him. She went out to the corridor and when she stumbled upon a knocked guard, she took his weapon.

  “Where is Dr Morant?” Said another security officer who was with them.

  “I don’t know, maybe he is holding her hostage.”

  “I don’t think he needs a human shield.”

  “There is a vault here with chemical supplies and other drugs. The rest would have been fried by the EMP. Do you know where it is?“

  “In the basement.”

  “Take me there.”

  After gathering some weapons, they both went to the basement but Lilli knew that Lark would feel them a few meters away, so she went behind the officer on purpose. The whole building was almost in the dark, especially on the lower floors.

  “It is here.”

  A door had been ripped off the frame. Inside that room, other vaults had been destroyed.

  “He was here.” Lili said.“There is stuff missing. We need to stop him from leaving the building.”

  “You know what he can do.”

  “There are no cars working, he won’t get that far.”

  They went to the hall and he gathered some men available. When Lili heard that he instructed them to shoot Lark and she stepped back. He will be hunted and brought back, dead or alive. That will be her destiny at some point, maybe not now, perhaps in a few years. She slipped from them and tried to find another exit, confused by the feeling that now she was a fugitive. As soon as Tecnium XG recovers, she will be one of its targets, her life won’t be hers anymore. Before arriving to one of the emergency exits, she overheard Dr Velia screaming.

  “No, you cannot do this to me!”

  “But I can.” Lark replied.

  “You won’t be able to stop us.”

  “We all knew. That is why we called the operation SETBACK. It will slow you down for a few years while we figure something out, look for allies, organise ourselves.”

  “They are all in cages and once the world knows what you did here in London.”

  “There are no casualties.”

  “Even if they are none, we will make some and blame you for it.”

  “Of course, that is why you are going to tell me what I need to know.”

  A black truck arrived.

  “I am not going to tell you the location of the others. If you kidnap me, the institute will know and move them. If you force me and leave me here, I will tell them as well and they will move them. There are contingency plans.”