Reset

by Brian Andrews

  Over the next hour, he conducted a series of experiments, attempting to exert some influence over a single part of his body. He chose his left foot as the target of opportunity. Presently she had him sitting at a desk working at a computer terminal. He tried to move the foot. No response. He tried to tap the foot. No response. He tried to wiggle his toes. No response. He tried concentrating and ratcheting up the signal as if he were straining against great resistance, but without results. No amount of brute-force mental effort could overpower EVE’s grip on his nervous system. He really was trapped in a pair of virtual vise grips, which was maddening because his condition was completely different from that of the “reprogrammed” drones Fischer, Dixon, and Pitcher. They seemed to operate in what he’d classified as a semiautonomous state—executing EVE’s general objectives but with a certain degree of self-determination. They roamed freely in and out of her sphere of direct influence, whereas he and Cyril—and a few other new additions—were kept on a tight leash within her direct transcranial-magnetic-stimulation range, a distance he estimated to be no greater than five meters.

  There had to be another way. There just had to be . . .

  And then it occurred to him, and he deflated instantly because it was impossible.

  But was it?

  Could he reprogram the mental pathways for control of his limbs just as he had trained his mind to think without relying on his internal monologue? Traumatic-brain-injury patients as well as stroke victims were known to do it—regain control of certain body mechanics by using a new area of the brain to expropriate the function from an injured region. If they could do it, so could he. Except that the retraining process generally took months, sometimes years, to accomplish. Unfortunately, he didn’t have that kind of time.

  He had hours, maybe days.

  Yet what choice did he have? He had to try.

  For Cyril. For humanity.

  He retreated to the darkest corner of his mind, where he could filter out all the sensory data—sight, sound, taste, smell, and touch—from his captive body. He let his consciousness drift in both time and space. He stripped himself of name and gender; he shed all the ideas, aspirations, and experience that had made him the person who once existed as Malcolm Madden. Through sheer force of will and meditation, he performed an intellectual reformatting of his mind. And when this was done, when he was a pure virgin soul, he rejoiced. He rejoiced in being born again, and he explored the inner workings of his mind in a way never before possible. He felt no limitations and had no preconceived constraints. And like an infant, he taught himself how to use and manipulate his limbs. At first they would not respond, so he tried again and again and again until he found pathways to control—

  The body of Malcolm Madden fell out of the chair onto the floor. It rolled around on its stomach for a while and then pressed up onto all fours. It crawled, slowly at first but then faster, to the desk where a woman sat making telephone calls. It rose up onto its knees and took the phone from the woman’s hands. Then it disconnected the call and dialed a new number, and when the call connected, it said, “Biogentrix-Rensalurrrr,” but then the words became slurred and nonsensical. Then it dropped the phone, collapsed onto the floor, and began convulsing violently.

  When it finally came to rest, it was neither Malcolm Madden nor the new soul anymore—just a mindless vessel under the control of an orb-shaped object hovering above.

  CHAPTER 43

  Watertown, New York

  For Legend, the drive back to the airfield at Fort Drum felt like the walk of shame. Since the very beginning, he’d been one step behind the orb, and the best he’d managed to do was stay one step behind . . . if that. Despite being chauffeured from the abandoned Pitcher residence back to base in the back seat of General Jaffrey’s slick, new Lincoln Continental, he hung his head in defeat. He’d completely underestimated the orb. He’d equated its size and simplistic appearance with innoxiousness. He’d let himself be lulled into using a complacent risk profile. The orb had never tried to break out of the box, which he’d taken to mean that it was incapable of breaking out of the box. It had proceeded carefully, methodically, and slowly, which he’d taken to mean that it was lethargic and passive. But the orb was a chimera, an illusion, a siren. It was the ultimate Trojan horse. It had wanted to be captured. It had wanted to be transported inside the walls of the kingdom. It had wanted to be presented to and studied by the brightest scientists, the most influential decision makers, and those individuals with access to the resources it needed to obtain. These were the people it had wanted to zombify, not a bunch of goatherds in the Tora Bora mountains.

  How would he ever find it now? How many zombie slaves did it have under its control? Ten, twenty, one hundred? Was there a limit? Was this thing the sum of all science fiction’s fears? Was this the thing that would take over the world and end humanity as—

  His mobile phone rang.

  He noted the caller ID, but it was not a number he recognized. “Major Tyree,” he said, phone pressed to his ear.

  “Biogentrix-Rensalurrrr,” said the caller.

  A charge of adrenaline ripped through his body. “Malcolm . . . Malcolm, is that you? Malcolm, talk to me!”

  The line went dead.

  The caller was Malcolm Madden, no doubt in his mind.

  “Go!” he said, tapping the driver on the shoulder.

  “What’s that, sir?” the driver said, looking back over his shoulder.

  “Go fast, Corporal,” he said. “Go very, very fast.”

  The Corporal flashed him a Han Solo grin. “I can’t tell you how long I’ve been waiting for the day somebody would say that to me.” He punched the accelerator, throwing Legend against the seat.

  He called the number that had called him. The call wordlessly connected then disconnected. He tried again and got an identical response. This was no accident. He was not supposed to know this number. He was not supposed to know the name Biogentrix-Rensalur.

  Fuckin’-A, Malcolm, you did it!

  He wondered what price the scientist was paying for his act of brazen courage.

  He ran a web search for Biogentrix-Rensalur.

  A few query refinements later, he’d sorted out what Malcolm had actually been trying to communicate: Biogentrix in Rensselaer.

  He called General Jaffrey’s office and was put through to the General on request.

  “This is Jaffrey,” the General said after picking up.

  “General, this is Major Tyree, sir. Do you remember when you said all of the resources of Fort Drum were at my disposal?”

  “Yes, Major, I do. What do you need?”

  “Sir, I need a team of your very best shooters, and I need them kitted up, on the tarmac, wheels up, and ready to go ASAFP.”

  “Did you find Sergeant Pitcher?”

  “I did one better, sir,” Legend said, clutching his phone. “I found the orb.”

  CHAPTER 44

  Biogentrix Vaccine-Manufacturing Facility

  Rensselaer, New York

  Josie and Ninemeyer arrived in Rensselaer and tracked Michael’s car to a bioscience and pharmaceutical-manufacturing park. Ninemeyer parked nose out behind a dumpster in a deserted parking lot behind the Biogentrix building.

  “This is the place. Your husband is here,” he said, switching off the engine and turning to look at her.

  “How do you know?”

  “Because your car is parked inside that facility.”

  “What do we do now?” she asked, and to her surprise, he told her his plan.

  When he finished talking, she said, “Why can’t we do this at night? In the movies they always do these types of missions at night.”

  “Night would be preferable, but we don’t have time. This thing is smart and strategic. The second it gets spooked, it will relocate. Also, the Army is looking for it. We have this one small window of opportunity to act, and this is it. If we don’t act now, right now, I’ll lose the object, and you’ll lose your husband forever. Do
you understand? I know the conditions are not ideal. I know the odds are not on our side. I know you wish we had a SWAT team to help us, but we don’t. It’s just you and me. David versus Goliath. We have to do this, and we have to do this now.”

  “Was that your version of a pep talk?”

  “Yes. How did I do?”

  Cold sweat trickled down from both her armpits. An unpleasant sensation roiled through her bowels, and she clutched her lower abdomen. “I don’t feel very well” was her response.

  “That good, huh?”

  She winced as a wave of nausea washed over her.

  “It’s normal to feel sick. You’re scared.”

  “Fuck yes, I’m scared. No matter the outcome, I’m a dead woman. Either the orb thing my husband found is going to take over my brain, or you’re going to shoot me. Not a lot to get excited about here.”

  “I’m only going to shoot you if you don’t do as I say. If you follow instructions, everything will be fine,” he said with the shadow of a smile.

  “You’re a pathological liar, Mr. Ninemeyer. You’ve been lying to me since we met this morning.”

  “It’s true; I am a pathological liar. And I have lied to you, but I’ve also told you the truth.”

  “But there’s no way for me to tell the difference,” she hissed.

  “Do you understand what you’re supposed to do?” he asked, apparently losing patience with her, his expression and voice now hard and cold as iron.

  “Yes, I’m the sacrificial lamb,” she said.

  “Those are your words, not mine. One of us has to be the distraction while the other shoots people. You have zero sniper training, nor are you emotionally prepared for murder, which makes the swapping of assignments out of the question. You do your job, and I’ll do mine.”

  “And if I refuse?”

  Ninemeyer sniffed and wiped his nose with the back of his hand. “Then I can’t guarantee Michael’s safety.”

  “That’s not something you can guarantee anyway.”

  “Look, Josie,” he said, an angry edge creeping into his voice now. “It would be a helluva lot easier for me to put a bullet in your husband’s brain than it will be to wait while you try to sweet-talk him out of the alien mind-control nest. You’re lucky you’re pregnant, or I’d—”

  “You’d what?” she said, tilting her head at him. “You’d cap us both?”

  He said nothing.

  “So can I?” she asked after a beat.

  “Can you what?”

  “Trust you? Can I trust you with our lives?”

  “Yes,” he said, unblinking, and held her gaze.

  She studied his face, wondering if there was any humanity in this man, and if so, had she somehow touched it? God, she hoped so. “In that case,” she said at last, “let’s do this.”

  With a nod, he unlocked the doors, and they both climbed out of the Tahoe. She met him at the tailgate, where she watched him prep the sniper rifle and load three extra magazines into his pockets. Next, she helped drag a heavy, lockable toolbox to the edge of the tailgate.

  “That’s what we’re going to put the alien technology in . . . a toolbox from Home Depot?”

  “Yes,” he said.

  She laughed out loud, a slaphappy, on-the-verge-of-losing-her-mind belly laugh.

  “Be quiet,” he snapped.

  “That’s ridiculous,” she said, still laughing. “Why would it let us put it in that?”

  “Because I will have killed all of its slaves and it won’t have any choice in the matter. Your husband put it in a box in Bagram; he can do it again.”

  “Oh, now I finally understand,” she said. “You need us because you don’t want to get anywhere near it. Michael’s mind has already been compromised, so it’s okay for him to do it. And you need me to make him cooperate.”

  He smiled at her. “Such a quick study.”

  “If you do your job,” she said, meeting his gaze, “I will get that thing in the box. My Michael is still in there. He’ll listen to me. He has to.” She put both hands on her abdomen. “He’ll do it for us. For our family.”

  “That’s exactly what I’m counting on,” he said and handed her a compact two-way radio.

  She clipped it to the waistband of her pants on her left hip because she wasn’t wearing a belt. He switched it to VOX, giving her hands-free transmission capability, he explained. Then she looked expectantly at him.

  “What?”

  “You’ve got your gun. Where’s mine?”

  “Do you know how to use a gun?”

  “Of course,” she said. “What kind of Army wife do you take me for?”

  Ninemeyer hesitated a moment, then retrieved a pistol from inside the SUV. He unscrewed something from the end of the barrel and handed it to her. “This is a Walther P22,” he said. “The manual safety is off. This gun fires a small bullet, .22 caliber, that quite frankly will be of little use unless—”

  “Unless you shoot someone in the head at close range?” she said, cutting him off.

  “Correct.”

  “Is that why you have this gun, Dean? Is that what you do for a living . . . shoot people in the head at very close range?”

  “Sometimes,” he said.

  “All right then,” she mumbled. What else was there to say? Her partner was a sociopath and an assassin. Wonderful. She tucked the pistol in the waistband at the small of her back.

  “Are you ready?” he asked.

  “As ready as I’ll ever be,” she said and felt her knees begin to shake.

  “Okay,” he said. “Showtime.”

  As she turned to go, he stopped her. “Don’t forget your toolbox.”

  “Oh yeah,” she said, grabbing the handle. She walked across the parking lot lugging the absurdly heavy toolbox with both hands. He had not fully explained to her exactly when or how he would engage, only that circumstances would dictate both the timing and the strategy. Her assignment was both simple and dangerous—determine whether the alien orb was indeed on-site and how many human zombies like Michael were present. Then announce this information for Ninemeyer, who would be listening over the radio.

  “This is crazy, this is crazy, this is crazy,” she mumbled to herself as she crossed the parking lot.

  Ninemeyer had told her to expect a roving patrol, but she walked unmolested all the way up to the entrance of the facility. The signage read BIOGENTRIX BIOSCIENCE. The lobby was dark and deserted, but she could see lights on beyond. Knees shaking, she set down the toolbox and tried the door. It was locked. She looked for a buzzer. Not finding one, she took a deep breath and then rapped on the plate-glass door with her knuckles.

  Nothing.

  She knocked again and waited.

  Still nothing.

  Then she pounded on the glass with a flat palm, shaking the door in the metal frame and making a substantial racket.

  Nothing.

  “I don’t think they’re here,” she said aloud for Ninemeyer’s benefit and had turned around to leave when a light flicked on. Her heart rate leaped, pounding like a bass drum in her chest. The compulsion to run was overpowering, and for an instant, she thought fear would trump conviction, but somehow she managed to hold her ground. A woman, smartly dressed in business attire and two decades Josie’s senior, appeared in the lobby. She wore stylish red-framed eyeglasses and a broad smile. It was the kind of smile one got from an old friend—expectant, nostalgic, and warm—entirely out of place for greeting a stranger. Upon reaching the entry door, the woman pressed a key card against a reader, and the magnetic lock clicked open.

  “Josie,” the woman said, smiling. “You’re the last person I expected to show up on my doorstep. Come in. Michael will be so relieved to see you.”

  Josie took a step back. “Um . . . who are you, and how do you know my name?”

  “I’m Eve,” the woman said, “and I’m very much looking forward to getting to know you.”

  Fear-induced paralysis enveloped Josie, as if the hand of God had r
eached down from the heavens to clutch her about the torso.

  “It’s all right. There’s no reason to be nervous, Josie,” the woman said, fixing her with a Stepford-wife smile.

  Josie swallowed, took a deep breath, picked up the toolbox, and stepped toward the door. The other woman’s eyes flicked to the box, and the corner of her mouth curled up into an ironic smile. But she said nothing, only turned and walked across the lobby. Josie followed. The woman used her key card to unlock the leftmost door on the back wall. She held it open for Josie.

  Josie stepped past her and across the threshold into a space that made her eyes go wide, and it took her brain a second to process what she was seeing. Stainless-steel vessels, various pumps and gauges, and interconnecting tubing lined the far wall. Some sort of automated production process was under way, and she could see several technicians in white lab coats tending to the operation. In the center of the cavernous space, workstations were arranged in concentric circles, occupied with people sitting at computers all facing toward the middle. Most of the people were typing, others were talking on phones, but no one bothered to look at her. The energy in the room was electric and palpable, but the cadence was all wrong . . . so very, very wrong. There was zero interpersonal engagement. Zero face-to-face communication. This was not how people worked. This was not how people interacted.

  “What is this place?” Josie heard herself ask.

  Her chaperone smiled. “Where is Agent Ninemeyer?”

  Josie felt her cheeks flush. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

  Now, Josie, we both know that’s not true. You can’t lie to me.

  Dread erupted inside her as Josie realized that the woman standing beside her was no longer speaking aloud. The voice she’d assumed was coming from her escort was in fact talking inside her mind.