“Why don’t I remember?”
“Biotronics. They hypnotized you, gave you drugs, hydroquanaline or something like it. It erases memories. Then they planted new memories in your head.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
“Is it? What do you remember of your past, Robert? How do those memories appear in your mind? Your first kiss?”
I tried to recall it, and I did. It was with Michelle. But as I reminisced, I thought the memory odd. I remembered it — the view — rectangular, dark around the edges, as if it were being shown to me on a movie screen. I looked at her blankly.
“Did you have a pet when you were a kid? What was his name?”
I couldn’t remember that one.
“Come on, Robert,” Sunny said. “Every little boy has a pet of some kind. If not a puppy or a cat, they have a lizard or a turtle, or a hamster named Winky or something.”
There was nothing.
“What about games you played?”
“I got you on this one,” I said. “High school football — and baseball. I remember little league baseball.”
“How do those memories come to mind? Are they like remembering what happened this morning or this afternoon?”
“Of course not,” I said. “That was a long time ago.”
“That’s not what I mean. How do they appear in your mind?”
I considered what she was saying. In my thoughts, I could see a bunch of boys, one hitting the ball and running bases. I could see another catching it on the ground and throwing it to second. However, again, it all appeared as if it happened from some sort of window or something — a rectangle in the dark, a movie screen.
“How about your wife and son? How do you remember them before today?”
At first, it made me angry for her even to suggest there was something wrong with the memories I had of my family. Nevertheless, I thought about them. The same memories I recalled earlier in the day came to mind. Playing catch with William, somehow in that rectangle again. Michelle walking down the aisle in her wedding dress, in a rectangle surrounded by darkness.
“What are you saying?” I asked.
“Robert, it all boils down to this. The Biotronics people kidnapped you. The Army Captain who was in charge sold out to them after doing the telepathy experiments at SRI — Stanford Research Institute.”
I asked, “Vanzandtz?”
Sunny looked at me surprised.
“She must have gotten a promotion,” I said. “When I remember her, she was still a lieutenant.”
“That’s right,” Sunny said. “You remember!”
I curbed her enthusiasm. “But that’s all I know. It came to me in a dream.”
“The CIA, DIA and the U.S. Army, had been researching psychic powers for twenty years, probably a lot longer. At the same time, the Biotronics people, led by Dr. Xiang, were experimenting with enhancing the telepathic powers of the subjects who exhibit the strongest abilities. Four years ago, Xiang came to some sort of a milestone, an implantable enhancement device. They started gathering up all of the most, let’s say, talented subjects discovered over the years. At least three-dozen people who had been involved in those college experiments alone have disappeared. Those are only the ones I could find out about. They’ve been snatching people. Some, they take away from their families, erase their memories and give them not only new memories but new families. Others are scientists and their families, brought here under the guise of witness protection or some such nonsense, like your little Raja fella.”
“Why?”
“I think they’re making the people who demonstrated the greatest psychic abilities into some sort of assassins. To use their minds as tactical weapons. To access the minds of others — infiltrate thoughts. To make them psychic warriors.”
“That really is nuts.”
“You think so? What about all these people who have been dropping dead around you?”
I became short of breath. “Jesus,” I said. “How? I mean, why would I?”
“Why did you kill those people? Because your subconscious mind sensed they were there to do you harm. That’s a part of your gift. You don’t read minds, so to speak. Not like some kind of a swami or something. But you can sense auras or electric fields emitted by other people’s brains. You know, brainwaves. How? You also have an incredible ability to project thoughts, also in brainwaves. They implanted an electronic device inside your head — attached it to your brain stem — that enhances your brain’s power to do that. The thing on your neck and the one on your shirt collar — they were not only tracking devices but antennae to send and receive signals so your enhancement implant could be turned on and off from an outside source.”
It was too incredible. My memory told me I had lived in Gold Rush, Colorado all of my life. I had rarely traveled away, and then only for a week or two. I was a hardware storeowner. I was a simple man. I had a son, a wife — until I killed her tonight.
A commotion came from inside the Biotronics entrance. People ran toward the door. Several men in the now common SWAT gear came out other windowless doors along the side of the building from both directions. They had their helmets on and goggles down.
Sunny saw them, too. “If things go wrong,” she said, “give me one last kiss, okay?”
I felt the plastic-wrapped pill with my tongue and thought of what she meant. “Let’s meet them halfway,” I told her and took the first step in front of the entrance. I didn’t care what happened now. William was inside. Planted in my head or not, he was the only one left I cared about. There was too much going on here, much more than Sunny had told me or even knew — more than I could ever imagine.
Sunny came up to my side and took my hand again. We smiled at each other. Not a happy smile, but a thin-lipped, this-might-be-it smile. We raised our hands together, and the guards surrounded us.
Chapter 25
We didn’t look at the eight guards who encircled us. Instead, we watched each other’s faces.
The guards said nothing, and luckily, their rifles didn’t speak either. They searched us, not finding anything on me but the map in my front pocket. The guy who found the map passed it to one of the men standing off to the side. I guessed he might be in charge.
After a brief inspection of the map, he handed it to a tall man at his side, who placed it in one of his many pockets. In Sunny’s pocket, they found something that looked like a ring of thin keys. Then I realized it was a set of lock picks. In addition, they found Sunny’s little .32 caliber pistol. That guard also gave his find to their leader, and in turn, he passed the gun on to the taller man. Then they found the necklace Sunny wore. I guessed it was the “panic button” Gunny Sampson had mentioned. The guard yanked it from around her neck. After being scrutinized briefly, it ended up in the same tall man’s pocket.
Still without speaking, they made it clear with their guns that we were to enter the building. This was what we had hoped, but they took us through an unmarked door twenty feet to the side.
Once inside, we descended a flight of steps down an echoing stairwell. We stopped in front of a door with a sign on it reading Restricted Area, Authorized Personnel Only in large, red letters. One of the guards placed his hand on what looked like a red Plexiglas pad angled out from the wall with a backlit palm print on it. The pad turned to green. The lock buzzed and the door opened with a click. They forced us inside, shoving and prodding us like cattle.
They coaxed us down a long, plain-white corridor, until we finally came to an unmarked door. Once again, the leader placed his hand on the red palm-print pad to enter and they forced us inside. After pulling out two metal chairs and placing them in the center of the room, they pushed us into them. A couple of the guards moved behind us, pulled our arms back and restrained us with nylon cable ties.
We waited there with the eight rifles trained on us for what must have been at least twenty minutes. The guards hardly moved, and they kept their helmets and goggles on. I asked one for a cigarette even thoug
h I didn’t smoke. He didn’t budge. Sunny asked for a Margarita with salt on the rim but got no response. When she looked at me and said, “Must be tea-drinkers,” the one who appeared in charge showed her the butt of his rifle, making it clear if she said another word, she would regret it.
I was almost thankful to see Dr. Xiang. He came through the door, his blue lab coat flying behind him. The white motorcycle helmet he wore didn’t come close to passing for a matching part of his ensemble, and I found myself wanting to chuckle nervously, wondering if he’d just stepped from the movie set of Space Balls. In addition, he wore the same copper-tinted goggles their SWAT people wore. An Oriental woman dressed in the same manner followed him in. The whole bunch of them reminded me of some sort of new age, punk-rock group.
“Doctor Xiang,” I said, knowing well he had been the one who ordered our deaths, yet hoping acting innocent might buy us time. “Thank God it’s you.”
I didn’t see the rifle butt coming, but I was sure that’s what hit me across the side of the face.
Doctor Xiang smiled. “This is where the bad guy tells the good guy all he wants to know,” he said. “Then at the last minute, the good guy escapes and saves the day, is that not correct, Mr. Weller?”
It was as if it was too late for the truth to hurt their plan now. I didn’t dare answer verbally. I licked the blood from my lip and gave him a narrow-eyed nod.
“Well, Mr. Weller, this is not Hollywood. I am not going to tell you . . . ,” he paused theatrically, “ . . . shit.” He smiled as if he’d just finished a large plateful.
Xiang turned to the woman. “Now we will see firsthand how well our product performs.” He motioned to the tallest of the guards, broader shoulders, about my size. It was the guy to whom they’d passed our possessions. “Take off your helmet,” Xiang said and I guessed he’d selected this guard at random, possibly didn’t even know him.
The young Oriental man looked at Xiang, and through the goggles I could see his eyes widen.
“I said, take it off,” Xiang repeated.
The two guards nearest the man turned their rifles on him.
He glanced at both of them and backed up to the door. He looked at the doctor and finally complied, placing his goggles up on his helmet. He leaned his rifle against the wall and then lifted the pot off, and one of the other men took it from him. His gaze raced around the room, but it was plain to see he was avoiding eye contact with me, now.
Doctor Xiang’s voice was mild. “Shoot them. Kill them both.”
The helmet-less soldier frowned and turned to me. He took his weapon from the wall and raised it. I saw his finger tighten on the trigger, and again I felt the pain shoot through the base of my head. I waited for the bullets, my pain intensifying, but they didn’t come.
Instead, the guy’s eyes suddenly bugged. He dropped the rifle, stiffened and toppled over into his comrades. They didn’t catch him but moved out of the way, and his body slammed onto the floor. My sharp headache subsided.
The doctor’s smile grew wide. The woman behind him seemed horrified, the lines around her eyes growing, her mouth dropping open.
He had used me to kill a man for the sole purpose of demonstration.
“You bastard!” I told Xiang.
Knowing I wouldn’t get far, I stood quickly, lowered my shoulder and tried to ram him. He stepped back as one of his men grabbed the restraints around my hands and another placed his foot in my gut, sharply. I fell to my knees.
“Very good,” Xiang said, staring at me. “Too bad we can no longer use you. You have become an embarrassment to this project. We cannot have that. We will renew our loyalty to the Chairman by disposing of you.” He brought out something small from his lab coat pocket and placed it briefly behind my head. I heard a snap, or more accurately felt a snap that was not painful, rather it gave me an odd sense of relief, a little like a joint adjustment from a chiropractor. But this adjustment was somewhere inside my head. He faced the woman as two men put me back in my metal seat and this time they also secured my hands to the frame of the chair. “His device is turned off, now.” He removed his helmet. “He is no longer a danger.” He smiled at his female assistant. “Dr. Yumi, if you’d please.”
The guards made room for the woman to pass. She stepped around the young soldier’s body and brought up a large syringe as she went to Sunny.
Sunny’s resistance, her toughness, had worn considerably and her skin was as pale as ivory. I knew what weighed on her the most was that now she wouldn’t find her husband. She turned to me, and I could guess what she was about to say. I moved the suicide pill, still in its bubble-wrap, from my cheek to the front of my mouth and prepared to bite into it.
“How ‘bout that kiss, now, Robert?” she said, but as soon as she did, the guard nearest her gave her a swift smack on the jaw with the butt of his gun.
Sunny’s head went back, agony twisting her face.
I tongued the pill back into my cheek and yelled, “Son-of-a-bitch.” I tried to stand again. The nylon cable ties held my arms firm against the metal chair, and although I was able to raise it from the floor, the guards shoved me back down.
The woman doctor with the syringe held her hand up to stop them from assaulting us anymore. “This won’t hurt,” she said and drove the needle into Sunny’s arm. She dispensed nearly half of the clear liquid before withdrawing.
I watched in horror as Sunny’s beautiful eyes pled with me. Her body jerked twice, then went limp, and her head fell forward.
“It is much better than a bullet,” Dr. Yumi said stepping to me. I glared at her. Through the copper visor, her eyes showed no emotion and her mouth curved into a cold smile.
The needle jabbed into my arm. A warmth rushed from my shoulder into my chest. It grew hot. My muscles contracted. My eyes rolled back. Darkness descended upon me, heavy and suffocating, like a black-velvet stage curtain. It broke away from its traversing rod and collapsed onto me, just another retiring thespian in this, his life’s final act. Darkness.
Chapter 26
Heaven or hell?
Lights glaring. Muffled, underwater sounds. Garbled drive-in-speaker voices. Strong odor, antiseptic. Bitterness in my mouth. Aching arms and legs — tingling skin as if covered in acupuncture needles.
Lights focusing. Sounds still distorted.
A clap — no, a slap across my face. No feeling, only the sharp sound. And ringing.
Focusing. The woman with the needle — Yumi. Her face over me.
No white helmet. Her hair long and black. Big, dark eyes and small features. She speaks to me. Whispering. Her lips moving, still sounding like in a pool — a water-filled tank.
Her hand across my face again. Head throbbing, lungs hurting, mouth dry.
Yet another slap. A sputtering. Lights flickering like a machine trying to start.
Something like a lightning bolt flashing across my eyes. A cacophony crashing into my ears like a semi truck.
I gasped, drawing in as much air as my lungs could take and nearly swallowed the suicide pill in the plastic. I coughed it back up and shoved it back into place in my cheek with my tongue.
Yumi gently covered my mouth with one hand and she put one finger to her lips. She glanced at the door momentarily. It didn’t move. She turned back to me.
I lay on some sort of table, cold and hard. Along the sides, I felt troughs and when I slowly turned my head, I realized what it was — a stainless-steel examination table, the gutters for draining blood and other body fluids away from a corpse. I looked to my side and saw Sunny staring at me, the semblance of a smile on her face.
“Don’t speak,” Yumi said, her voice slightly above a whisper. “Just listen for now. I have once again turned on your brainwave projection device — for your protection.”
I watched her, still dazed. She wasn’t wearing her helmet, so I figured she must trust me and this strange power I had if she’d restarted it. Then, I noticed the tables surrounding us. On them were other sheet-draped bodies.
It was a different place than where we met with Dr. Xiang, a morgue, I guessed, with two wide doors on opposite walls. One had a sign on it that said Furnace. The other wasn’t labeled and probably led to the hallway.
“I wish to make it clear to both of you. I do not like you or what you stand for. Nevertheless, you are the lesser of evils, and with your escape, we will find the path to freedom. It is crucial for you to get away and tell the world of this place. If you do not, we are all doomed. My people. Your people.”
She looked at Sunny. “You have a second helicopter?”
Sunny nodded slowly.
Yumi continued. “You have been unconscious for over an hour now. It is imperative you are many miles away from here before sunrise. That gives me two hours to gather the proof. I will make copies of what I cannot take. You must present to the world this proof of what is being done here. Only then will we truly be safe. Do you understand?”
I frowned and shook my head slowly. Real life was beginning to appear like that bad sci-fi movie.
“You will,” she said.
I tried to sit up, but fell back to my side. Yumi helped me raise up, and I threw my legs over the edge of the table. They swung there briefly like a couple of sand bags on ropes.
Sunny could only lie there with her hand out to me. I reached as far as I could but was only able to touch her fingertips.
Yumi gave us a visual inspection.
“Why did you come here?” she asked. “You had a much better chance of escaping if you had run when you could.”
“My son . . . ,” I said, my voice hoarse. I swallowed, and it felt as though razor blades had lodged in my throat.
Yumi went to a stainless-steel sink nearby and drew water into a small paper cup.
“Speak softly, please,” she said and handed me the cup. “We do not wish to be overheard.”
I took it, gulped a mouthful and looked at Sunny.
“ . . . her husband,” I said. “They’re here.”
I handed the cup to Sunny. She reached for it and tried to sit up but couldn’t. I slipped from the gurney and nearly fell face first onto the floor but caught myself. The doctor took my arm, and I moved tenuously to Sunny’s side. After placing my hand under Sunny’s head, I helped her drink.
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