by Sean Platt
There seem to be two kinds of people I Jump into: random people who have nothing to do with me, and those who are connected in some way to the Mystery of Me.
These last two Jumps feel super connected. I’m not sure how Darius is linked, but Irina said that “they made me look for you after what happened.”
Who are they? And what happened?
Are they Darius’s group?
Did Irina pull me into her body, or was it some mysterious hidden hand, whether it be nature or a mystical force, that put me inside her?
If Irina is connected to me, then Darius must be too. He’s a freaking man who can shoot fire out of his hands.
Pyrokinesis?
It doesn’t make sense, but then again neither do body jumping assassins. This is a strange new world, and the more I learn, the more I realize I don’t know anything.
I look at the phone again.
It’s 7:04 AM and I need to get ready for work, even though I’m not sure what Brooke’s job is. I only know that she leaves the house at promptly 7:45 each weekday morning.
I switch on the nightstand lamp and set the phone down, realizing that I’ve never seen one quite like it. I’ve used many phones during the last year or so jumping from body to body, and become proficient in all the various models and operating systems from cheap prepaids to one time when I jumped into a high-level Samsung employee and found myself with a prototype.
But this phone is something different.
I turn it over in my hand. It looks and feels like an iPhone, slim and glossy in my hand. It even has the fingerprint sensor. But it doesn’t have the familiar Apple logo, a home screen, or a single icon from Apple or Android.
What OS is this?
I thumb through the icons, searching for any sign of an OS, but there’s no information, and it’s like nothing I’ve ever seen. Most of a phone’s usual options are either locked away or missing — there’s no app store or music program. Only the barest of bones.
I pull up the contacts and find a long list of people with official titles beside their names: Commander, Sergeant, Agent In Charge, Director, and Liaison. Most of these names are attached to a company: Advanced Dynamics.
Something about that name stirs a buzz inside me, but I can’t find any concrete memories to make sense of.
I drop her phone on the nightstand then head to the shower.
Brooke’s apartment is small but immaculate. Expensive-looking paintings grace the wall, mostly in neutral colors that match the blacks, grays, and whites in her place. Even her Ikea bookcases are eggshell, decorated with black and white knickknacks and book spines.
Brooke’s closet is divided neatly in half. One side is business attire, conservative dresses — mostly black and gray — ivory jackets and creamy white blouses. The other side is split between workout clothes and what looks to be paramilitary gear — pants, shirts, gloves, boots, and bags of equipment. Nowhere in the closet do I see casual wear, or nice dresses for Brooke to wear out on the town.
What the hell do you do for a living, Miss Brooke?
I put on a skirt, a blouse, and a pair of black wedge shoes, check myself in the mirror, then grab Brooke’s phone and head to the kitchen. There are a gun and holster draped over the chair, an ID card on the table.
Brooke Sumner. Lead Division Five Consultant, Advanced Dynamics.
A gun for a consultant job?
What is Division Five?
I strap on the gun, throw on a jacket, and head out the door, hoping that my host’s brain will start filling me in on whatever the hell is happening here.
I grab a coffee and a bagel from a local coffee shop on the way to work, though I’ve no interest in either. But I never know with a host when their bodies will fail because I didn’t properly feed them.
I take a few bites of the bagel on the ride to work, but I’m too anxious about whatever this Advanced Dynamics will turn out to be to enjoy a single one.
AD is twenty minutes from Brooke’s apartment, tucked away in a business park filled with several low-rise buildings and a separate structure that’s about twelve stories high, surrounded by acres of grasslands and forest.
The perimeter is also surrounded by a high electrified fence with barbed wire all along the top.
I drive up to the gate. There are four guards checking access cards, all wearing guns. There’s also an oversized booth between the entrance and exit lanes with more men stationed, every one with a rifle at the ready.
What the hell is this place?
My stomach churns as I roll down my window and greet the guard with an artificial smile, certain that I’m going to come off as nervous as a terrorist trying to smuggle a bomb into a top secret location.
The guard is a good-looking young man with a buzz cut. His eyes are deep blue and all business. His badge reads G. Stevens.
He takes my card, runs it through a scanner, hands it back to me, then waves me through.
“Have a good day, Miss Sumner.”
I nod, roll up my window, then take the long and winding road toward the “business” park.
I pull into a ten-story garage to the right of the main building. Cameras are everywhere. I’ve never seen so much security in a garage. There’s quite a bit of distance between it and the building, but I’m met by an old man driving a twelve-passenger cart.
I get on. The only other person onboard, other than the driver, is a chubby man with thick black glasses and long dark hair.
The badge hanging around his neck from a lanyard reads Stanley Jetker, Research and Development Engineer.
Stanley is staring at me. I’m not sure if I know him. He’s not triggering any memories, but so far today with this host very little has. It’s as if her brain is on a very strict need-to-know basis with me.
I nod. “How’s it going?”
“Good,” he says, looking nervously down at his laptop bag.
Alright, apparently Stan is a bit of an introvert.
Uncomfortable, and not wanting to sit through a lengthy round of awkward glances and nods, I pull out my phone and start thumbing through emails as we drive from the parking lot to the main twelve-story building.
One of the most recent emails is from this morning at 5:20 AM, from my partner, Richard Wellner: Attached are the files on Darius Williams, apprehended last night and sitting in containment awaiting interview. See you at 10:00.
Darius!
These are the people that got him?
I swipe to download the file. It opens immediately, and I’m given facts about Darius that I hadn’t learned in his body.
He’s considered a Category C Threat, whatever that means, and is labeled a “Pyrokinetic.”
Several parts of his bio are redacted, sharp black lines slicing through them.
What the hell is happening here?
I read the email again, focus on the word interview.
My host’s brain finally feeds me information.
Apparently, I interview subjects for the Institute as part of my job. I work with Rich. Early forties, buzz cut like the guard, a drill sergeant’s personality, without an ounce of cuddly warmth. He manhandles subjects before it’s my turn to come in all smooth and reasonable.
Classic Good Cop/Bad Cop.
Brooke went to university to study behavior analysis, graduated at the top of her class, then landed a gig with the FBI, working as a liaison officer with both the FBI and CIA’s long-thought-dormant Scientific Intelligence Division. While officially employed by the FBI, that was a loophole allowing Brooke to work for her real employer, the CIA, on American soil.
Now she spends her days working people like Darius — Deviants, according to the Institute. All supervised under the umbrella of Project Karma, a CIA black ops program much like the defunct MKULTRA.
Karma as in Karma Police, the assassin body jumpers I may or may not be one of? That can’t be a coincidence.
I look again at the word Deviants.
This is what they call people wit
h special talents like Darius. But how they get these abilities or how many people have them — Brooke’s memories refuse to inform me.
I try to pull up memories of past interviewees but run straight into a thick wall of what feels like static.
Brooke’s brain might be the most compartmentalized I’ve ever seen in a host. Details should be popping up as I access her memories, but I’m only getting thin snippets, the kind of pre-packaged lies you’d tell family and friends when you didn’t, or couldn’t, tell them that you worked for the CIA.
I’m not sure if these mental roadblocks are defense by design or just the way she’s wired — like someone protecting themselves from trauma.
I think about the Deviant database and wonder if I’m in it.
Maybe I’m a Deviant, and body jumping is my ability.
We arrive at the main building. Stan the Man waves and wishes me a good morning, waiting for me to get off the cart before him.
And they say chivalry is dead.
I return the wave then head inside to whatever is waiting to change things forever.
Claustrophobia is a burning blanket around me, closing in tighter as I descend into the bowels to Sublevel 3. I want to hit the button and go back up, get in Brooke’s car, and race home. Red lights be damned.
Let her deal with this shit tomorrow. I want a sick day.
But I can’t.
I’m in Brooke’s body for a reason, and I can’t just leave. This might have something to do with Chelsea, and I’m not willing to abandon the girl. She was being held in a room somewhere with other people in comas.
What if that place is here?
It wouldn’t surprise me.
The security only seems to get tighter as I make my through a winding labyrinth of identical hallways, cameras every few feet, with hand and eye sensors at key entrance points. I wonder how much access I have.
If Chelsea is here, can I gain entrance to her cell block?
I follow Brooke’s memories through a security station where I’m told to place my hand on a reader, even though the guard knows me, before getting waved through a set of tall double doors.
Institutional hallways open to a lobby that looks like it belongs on Madison Avenue, instead of a … whatever the hell this is. Overstuffed couches line the long aquarium wall. The receptionist’s desk is the size of a city bus. I pass with a friendly wave to Carol. She nods, barely glancing up from her monitor.
I pass her desk then head down a T-shaped hallway with six doors on either side, and past another set of doubles at the far end where an armed guard is stationed outside.
If I were to take a right, I’d be led to our offices. A left would take me to the cells where Deviants are held until we’re finished processing them.
I look at the red double doors — the Interview Room.
I greet the guard, place my palm on a panel beside the doors, then wait until they click open.
I step inside.
The Interview Room is divided in half. There’s a long table in front of a window, and another table on the other side, with a pair of chairs facing each other. A door on the room’s far side leads to a back hall, where subjects can enter.
Rich Wellner is at the table sifting through files. He doesn’t acknowledge my entrance. I get the feeling that his demeanor towards me isn’t unusual. This man doesn’t like working with me. I can feel it, though I have no associated memories to tell me why.
Did Brooke lock those away, too?
I take a seat and Rich wordlessly slides a file to my side.
I open it and see it’s the same file I saw on my phone already, with more paperwork attached. There’s precious little information about the place that Darius and Janet broke into last night: DC1451. I want to ask what the place is, but Brooke would probably know, so I keep my mouth shut.
I glance over the files while waiting for Rich to speak. Finally, he says, “Bastard took down four agents last night.”
“Shit,” I say.
“If it were up to me, he’d be dead already. But apparently, Howard thinks this freak can be turned into an asset.”
I catch a look in his eyes that I can’t quite decipher. He looks away.
“What do you think?” I ask, not knowing who Howard is or what assets Rich might be talking about.
“We’ll see.” Rich sighs.
A door opens and Darius is led to the table by an armed guard.
He’s wearing gray coveralls, hands bound behind his back in a black metal casing. There’s a matching metal collar around his neck, making the poor man look like a dog. He’s bruised to shit, with stitches on his cheek and forehead.
Did they rough him up after they caught him, or was he injured already?
His eyes are hollow sockets.
He’s shoved roughly in a seat at the table.
The guard leaves.
Darius stares at the table, not acknowledging the two-way mirror occupying most of the wall.
I look at Rich, glaring at Darius. Brooke’s memories tell me that he does this to set the stage for the interrogation. Anxiety supposedly throws them off, thus giving Rich and Brooke an advantage.
I wait for Rich to look at me.
“You ready?” he asks.
I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be ready for. I have no idea what I’m supposed to do.
I hope it comes to me as I nod and follow Rich into the room.
Chapter Three
I stand back in the corner while Rich goes to work on Darius.
He introduces us, then sets a manila folder in front of the prisoner, just out of reach — not that he could get it anyway, given that his hands are bound behind him.
Rich slowly circles the table. Then he stops. “You’re in some deep shit, my friend.”
Darius says nothing. Just sits there looking drugged or exhausted, staring at the folder.
“You killed four federal agents. You’ll be lucky to get life in prison, probably in one of our black sites where we deal with you freaks. But it’s even more likely that your luck has run out, and you’ll get the death penalty. Are you ready to die, Darius?”
“I’m not saying shit,” Darius says, looking up with a menacing glare. His voice so low it’s almost a growl. “Where’s my girlfriend?”
Rich meets his eyes, jaw clenched. “This isn’t how it works, Darius. You don’t get to ask any of your questions until after you answer all of mine. Do you understand?”
Darius says nothing. Doesn’t even blink. Just stares down at the table.
Rich continues, “You were breaking into a classified data center. A data center that very few people even know exists.”
I remember something in the documents about Site 1241 but didn’t connect it to the data center. What kind of data center was this?
Rich takes a seat opposite Darius and folds his hands. “I want to know how you learned about this site.”
Darius shrugs, his eyes still on the table.
Rich slams his fists down hard, causing both Darius and me to jump.
Darius’s eyes widen like he’s been slapped awake.
“How do you know about the data center?” Rich repeats.
Darius shrugs again, returning his seemingly affected sleepy gaze to the table.
Rich sighs and opens the folder, pretending to read it. But there’s only blank paper inside. He’s bluffing, staring at the empty sheet as if deep in thought.
He closes the folder and drops it on the table. “I don’t think you’re the type of guy who meant to get messed up in this, are you, Darius?”
Darius says nothing. His eyes are fixed on the folder as if he’s afraid of what else might be in there.
Suddenly I hear Darius’s voice, in my head.
“Oh, shit. This is so fucked up. Just gotta keep my mouth shut, wait for Ben to get a lawyer.”
I’m staring wide-eyed, wondering how the hell I’m hearing Darius in my head. Then it hits me, why I’m here in this room. It’s why Brooke works
here, why she works with this sour old man who hates her kind.
Brooke is a Deviant, too. Or, in Rich’s words, a freak.
Her gift is reading people’s thoughts, and now, at least for the moment, that ability belongs to me.
Rich looks at me oddly, brow furrowed as if he’s about to ask me something, though I’ve no idea what that might be. I feel like this interrogation is supposed to be played out in two parts, his and mine, and like the world’s worst actor, I’ve forgotten my lines.
Brooke still isn’t helping me out. Although maybe she is helping by picking up on Darius’s thoughts.
Rich stands, then paces, looking at me expectantly.
I nod, hoping that’s what he’s waiting for.
It seems to be.
Rich repeats his question. “You aren’t that kind of guy, are you, Darius?”
“No, sir.”
“Then, please, let me hear your side. Tell me about the others, the ones who put you up to this.”
Again, I hear Darius’s thoughts.
“Just stay cool. Ben will take care of this. He’s got to take care of this.”
I step forward before I even realize what I’m doing, speaking before I’ve considered Brooke’s words.
“Ben’s not going to help you now.”
His eyes widen, panicked like he knows I’m in his head.
I already regret opening my mouth.
I’ve spooked him. Now he’ll be more cautious with his thoughts.
Rich, however, looks pleased. Like he was waiting to hear me confirm Ben’s association. Though Darius is the one with blood on his hands, I can’t help but feel that Darius is the victim here and that I just helped the enemy.
What the hell did I do?
Darius rocks back and forth in his chair, eyes distraught.
“I’ve gotta get out of here. Gotta get my hands free. Torch this whole fucking place until I find Janet!”
Rich is looking at me. He gestures, urging me to continue.
Reluctantly, I do. Maybe I can find a way to steer this toward a positive resolution for Darius. I don’t know how, but I’m hoping that the answer will come to me quickly.
I sit opposite Darius.