by Vikki Romano
Sex was something he had lost his taste for over time, sadly. He did have a regular, a girl he’d met at a club downtown about a year ago. Nice enough person, killer body, pretty decent tits, but on the whole, nothing special. Nothing intriguing. Nothing like Sierra.
Now sex with Sierra… well, that would be pretty spectacular, and he was surprised they had never slept together in all the years they had been partners. She had a tight little athletic body, nice, round, grabable ass, and perky tits that drove him nuts. Just thinking about them was giving him a hard-on.
He let out a breath and walked a bit, adjusting himself. Shit.
“You OK down there?” Jimmy shouted down to him, and Calder mumbled something incoherent as he tried to turn his mind to other things. Like why he was down there in the first place.
“I’ll be up in a minute. Do you mind if I grab a few things while I’m window-shopping?”
“Be my guest. I’m going back to the house. The lever for the lift is on the wall near where we came in.”
Calder nodded to himself, and as he heard the lift kick into gear, he turned back to the shelving and began looking over what was there. So much to play with; so much to take. He tucked a couple of pistols into the back of his pants and filled his side pockets with ammo and recharge cartridges. As much as he’d love to take the M249, it was too bulky to carry out of there right now, and it wasn’t like he’d do well taking it anywhere on his bike.
His bike. Yeah, he’d have to find new transport. Maybe Jimmy had an underground bunker full of armored vehicles somewhere in the front yard. At this point it wouldn’t surprise him.
With his body now weighed down with weapons and ammo, Calder made his way back to the ladder, but stopped and turned back for a moment. Something caught his attention, made the hair stand up on the back of his neck.
Smiling broadly, he stepped past a few shelves to where he saw a large black box. His fingers moved eagerly over the clip closures and he popped them open. Lifting the lid, he found it full of pulse rifles. MP20s that had been seriously modified. He hesitated, but then reached in to grab one off the top.
Pain.
Excruciating pain and blinding, bright light.
He tried to set the rifle back in the box, but his hands locked on the grip and the barrel. He could feel his mind moving, going over sequences, loading the weapon, preparing it. And he could feel himself stepping aside, as if he were just another person in the room, observing.
His mind screamed and fought against the actions his body was performing, but it was no use. He was merely a passenger now, his mind and body hijacked by whatever was running through his augment. He could feel the panic rise in his throat, and just as quickly, it was dampened by the aggression and persistence of this parasite that had taken him over.
As he fought to remain cognizant, fought to control the uncontrollable, he felt his grip on himself slacken and just as suddenly… disappear.
He’d been down there a long time. Granted, it had probably been years since he’d seen that many military weapons in one place, but he also didn’t want Calder to fall into another funk. Bad enough he was still torturing himself about that skirmish fourteen years ago, about how it cost him his leg and six of his friends.
Hell, who didn’t lose friends during war? Calder may have lost six during that bout, but he had lost handfuls in all the years prior. More than handfuls. In fact, in one of his first outings they had lost entire battalions of men, and several squadrons on top of that, maybe a few thousand men in the end. He had known many of them, and he still grieved his loss of them, but he did not torture himself about it. A good soldier never did.
Calder was a good soldier, though. Conscientious, hardworking, and diligent from the start. That was why Jimmy had chosen him among many to mentor. He saw potential in him to become something extraordinary. And Calder had exceeded his expectations.
He was a natural marksman, could target in any circumstance. And he was comfortable with weapons because he respected them. That was rare. Not many new recruits had that. They were always so eager to show off, prove to the sergeants they didn’t need training because they were tough enough without it. Stupid, cocky fuckers.
Calder never took that attitude with him. He was always eager to learn and practice, make sure he was doing it right. He was a perfectionist, so it was a no-brainer when Jimmy was asked to nominate some recruits for the new special ops project. Hell, Calder was at the top of his list to go anywhere up the ladder. He was officer material. He had too much skill and too much heart to be a grunt.
Jimmy grabbed another beer out of the fridge and popped the cap into the sink as he passed by, sucking the foam off the top of the neck as he made his way into the living room. He set the bottle on the trunk that he used as a coffee table and went to the shelf across the room.
It was covered with awards, badges, medals, and a lot of dust. There was a dog tag from his granddad, used before they started encoding troops digitally. An old grenade dummy sat next to a handful of spent M74 casings. And stuck behind a trophy for some long-forgotten contest was a picture. Printed on holoboard. He and Calder sat on a tank, covered in grime, looking worse for wear, but giving the thumbs-up. Typical pose for soldiers. Always pushing forward with a smile no matter what shit was falling around them. The pic was taken the day before that skirmish when he lost his leg. Happier times. There were always happier times.
He turned when he heard Calder come into the room, and was about to show him the picture when he stopped. Calder was loaded down with weapons--all of them, it seemed. He had even strapped knives to his legs and arms.
“Planning a skirmish of your own?” Jimmy asked jokingly, but instead of coming back with a typical smartass remark, as Calder was known to do, he simply hoisted the pulse rifle in his hand and pointed it at Jimmy.
The blast was enough to cut him in half. Luckily, he dove out of the way and behind the couch, though Calder kept shooting, sending shards of wood and fabric everywhere, puffs of batting floating in the air.
“Jesus Christ!” Jimmy belly-crawled into the hallway, pulled himself into his bedroom around a corner. “Calder, what the fuck?”
There was no response, but he heard Calder’s forward motion, the whine of his pulse charging. Jimmy opened the bottom drawer of his dresser and pulled out a pulse rifle of his own. Slapped the charge pad and watched the LEDs light up. Thank God he had charged it.
He crawled back to the doorway, poked his head out to see where Calder was, and nearly got it blown off. The kid was a crack shot, he’d give him that. Jimmy backed up and got to his feet, crouching out of the way. He could see Calder’s reflection in a mirror at the end of the hall, and he was shocked by what he saw.
Calder’s face was void, his eyes dark, almost black. He was a shell.
Jimmy leaned back and tucked himself on the other side of the dresser. He gathered his thoughts, slowed his breathing. This wasn’t Calder. This was whatever was taking him over. Whatever it was, it had no remorse, and it would have none when it killed him, but he would have the remorse if he had to put Calder down.
He cranked the rifle down a notch. Perhaps stunning him would work. Then he could bind him somehow, maybe tranq him until he could figure out what to do. He had to do something.
The footsteps neared and Jimmy let out a slow breath, brought his gun up, and took his stance. When Calder came around the corner, Jimmy could hear the whir of his pulse rifle set to kill.
“Calder, it’s me, it’s Jimmy!” Saying his name didn’t seem to do anything. Calder’s face remained cold as he lifted his own rifle up to aim. This was Jimmy’s last chance. It was all he could think to do.
“Stand down, McKenna! Who told you to step out of line, soldier? Put that weapon down before I feed it to you for chow!” He hadn’t used his drill sergeant tone in years, but it came out loud and clear, and for a split second, he thought he was a dead man.
Calder reached up and
set the amp levels, ready to fire, and then, just as suddenly, he stepped back, lowered his weapon, and blinked repeatedly, squinting as if he was being blinded. Without wasting a moment, Jimmy snatched the rifle from him and set it behind him without lowering his own weapon. Granted, Calder was carrying several other weapons, but that was one down and out of the way.
Calder stumbled back a moment, holding out his hand to steady himself against the wall. Jimmy wanted to check him, but the danger was not over until he could be sure that the demon that was driving him was gone, or at least turned off.
“McKenna?” He stood back a moment, still holding him in his sight.
Calder closed his eyes and shook his head repeatedly as he gasped for breath. He stumbled away from the wall and fell to his knees, grasping his head in his fists as he let out a wail.
“Make it stop!” His cries were pure agony. Jimmy stood powerless, unable to help him. He put his own weapon behind him, then stooped to put a hand to Calder’s shoulder.
Calder flinched away from him as if his skin were on fire.
“I don’t know how to help you. What do you want me to do? Just tell me and I’ll do it.” Jimmy crouched down next to him, wishing desperately that there was something he could do. Not like some painkillers and a shot of alcohol was going to help, and that was all he had. That was all he ever needed for his own pain, which seemed trivial now.
Calder looked up at him then, his face red, wet with sweat and his eyes despondent.
“Put a bullet in my head! For fuck’s sake, Jimmy!”
Jimmy sat back on his haunches then, speechless. What did you say to a request like that? What did you say when you knew it might be the only answer left?
But it wasn’t something he could do. Not right now, not without exhausting every avenue there was to help cure Calder. He’d only been there a few hours and they hadn’t even started to look into alternatives, so Jimmy wasn’t about to give up yet.
“Stop talking shit,” he said, coming to his feet, forcibly pulling Calder to his. “I’m going to put you in the guest room, give you the strongest pain stim I have, and you’re going to get some sleep. You need sleep.”
Calder shook his head. He had already given up, Jimmy could see that, but he had to be strong in his place. Force him to hold on until things could be fixed.
Even as he struggled against him, Jimmy dragged Calder to the back bedroom and dropped him onto the bed. He immediately curled himself into a fetal position and held the pillow tight against his head. He could not fathom how much pain Calder’s augment was causing, or what something in your skull like that would feel like.
“Hold tight. I’ll be right back,” he said, and rushed out of the room and down the hall to the bathroom. He had a box under the sink full of all types of meds. Stuff the VA had given him, and stuff he had gotten on his own through various connections. There hadn’t been a night since the wars that he didn’t go to sleep without some type of pain med. Beyond the loss of his leg, which produced its own phantom pains, every joint in his body ached, and if it wasn’t the pain of the body it was the ache of the mind that kept him awake. Strong meds were a necessity.
He dug to the bottom of the box for the pack of stim pads. Instant morphine. The ones he had were mixed with a sedative and were the next best thing to a tranq dart. He grabbed a handful and went back to the room where he had put Calder.
“This is going to help you,” he said as he slowly sat on the side of the bed. Even with Calder’s head buried in a pillow, he didn’t want to take any risks in spooking him. He had no idea what his triggers were, and he wasn’t about to find out.
He set the stack of stim pads on the bedside table. If this was going to work and he was going to be comfortable having Calder here, he was going to have to disarm him first. He worked quickly to remove the knives Calder had strapped to himself and then emptied his pants pockets of all the ammo he could find. There was a nice little pile on the end of the bed by the time he was done.
“Armed like a proper soldier,” Jimmy said with a low chuckle. “I’m going to take your pants off so I can put the stim on your leg. You’ll sleep more comfortably without them anyway.” He was surprised when Calder not only mumbled his acceptance of the action, but rolled to his back and painfully started to undo his pants.
“Don’t get any ideas,” he said with a pained smirk, and Jimmy laughed. This was Calder. For now he was there with him, so he needed to move quickly before Mister Hyde returned.
“In your dreams, McKenna.” Jimmy untied Calder’s shoes and removed them, tossing them onto the floor, then grabbed the cuff of each pant leg and yanked until they came off. “At least you’re not commando.”
“In your dreams, DeAngelo,” Calder said, then adjusted the legs of his boxer briefs.
Jimmy took a packet off the top pile and tore it open with his teeth.
“It’s going to burn a bit, so don’t scratch at it or touch it. After a few minutes, you won’t even remember who you are anyway.”
“Wonderful. Not like I’m having an identity crisis as it is or anything.”
“Well, right now you know who you are, and this will help you get through the night. I’ll come in in a few hours and give you another dose so it lasts a while.”
Calder nodded and watched Jimmy as he peeled the backing from the pad and pressed it to his thigh.
The muscles under Jimmy’s fingers were hard as rock, abnormally so, and he looked up to catch the look on Calder’s face.
“It’s all part of the package, apparently,” he said, then rolled his head to the side to look away, disgusted with himself.
“We’ll get it all sorted.” Jimmy gave a sigh and stood from the bed. He gathered the weapons and ammo and threw them into a hamper near the door, then turned back to pull the blanket up to Calder’s waist. “Just rest up for now. If you need anything, just call out. I don’t sleep much these days anyway.”
Calder nodded slowly, then fell limp as his eyes closed, and for now, the ordeal was over. In the morning, they’d have to figure out what their next steps were, and Jimmy knew it wasn’t going to be simple. With Calder, it never was.
CHAPTER NINE
Tom Malcolm was an odd bird. A tall, skinny man with a puff of gray hair above each ear and not much else. He sat at the counter in the lab looking nervous, his eyes darting about the room as his fingers drummed the table. Sierra handed him the cup of coffee she’d just made for him, and he sipped it with a shaky hand.
“Can I get you anything else?” she asked, and he shook his head.
“No, I’m good. Am I in some sort of trouble?”
“Not at all.”
“Then why was I brought here?” he asked, setting the cup on the counter, spilling it. Sierra waved him off and grabbed a rag from another table to clean it up.
“We have some questions for you, about Tsendai,” she said, then grabbed his arm when he got off his stool in a panic and started to leave.
“I can’t! I can’t talk about that place. They’ll find me and kill me.”
“Who?” she demanded.
“GenMed thugs, who do you think?” he said, wrenching his arm out of her grasp. Sierra held up her hands in truce.
“I work for the metro PD. I’ll make sure you get protection.”
He laughed loudly, the menacing sound of it echoing through the lab.
“The PD can’t protect me from GenMed! No one can. They have elite killers, trained henchmen to take people out when they snap their fingers. You aren’t even going to make them flinch.”
Sierra looked over at Cooper, who just shrugged and went back to his work. Not very hopeful.
Grinding her teeth, she turned back to Tom and gestured to his seat, which he took reluctantly.
“We’ll make sure you’re safe, I give you my word,” she said, taking a seat of her own.
Tom smirked.
“I don’t even know who you are, and you expect
me to trust you? You could be GenMed for all I know.”
“Wow, paranoid much?” Steven said, coming into the room. “What the fuck did they do to you that you’re a nervous wreck?”
Tom let out a breath when he saw Steven. Apparently he knew the man. The acknowledgement was obvious, and Sierra could see Tom’s panic level visibly step down a few notches. He picked up his coffee and downed what was left of it.
“They haven’t done anything to me, not yet, and I’d like to keep it that way.”
Steven hopped up onto the counter informally, his sneaker-clad feet dangling like a kid.
“I just need to ask you some questions, maybe pick your brain.” Steven was blunt enough.
“In regard to what?” Tom asked.
“The Omega project.”
Tom’s face paled.
Uninterested in his friend’s emotional state, Steven turned to face him, pulling one leg up beside him to set his tablet on his thigh.
“I know you were on that project and we need some answers, namely about the code.”
“I… I can’t tell you anything about that project. It was top secret, military.”
“Not anymore,” Cooper said snarkily, coming to lean against the counter next to Sierra. “Tsendai sold it to GenMed. GenMed isn’t anywhere near military, except in their protocol.”
Sierra was happy Steven and Cooper both had a handle on the ins and outs of what was going on, because she knew nothing about the Tsendai takeover, aside from the aftermath the PD had to deal with when the assassinations started to surface. Brutal killings and beheadings of major stockholders and top executives. The hits were carried out in a gruesome, ritualistic fashion, reminding her of the stuff she had read about in history books. Cryptic messages were sent announcing their intentions, whoever they were. Threats, apocalyptic warnings. Typical zealot stuff, except that this was a technology corporation doing the killing--at least, that’s what was surmised.
Their tracks were always covered. There were never any witnesses or evidence. Money covered up many bad deeds in the real world; she learned that long ago. Murder was just another misdeed shoved under their gigantic, shiny rug.