AEGIS EVOLUTION

by S. S. Segran

  When the Boss answered, the deep, digitally-distorted voice that emerged made the doctor jump. “It would seem so. All the same, I would—you look startled, Doctor. Did the voice modulator catch you off guard?”

  Dr. Nate smiled up at the hooded figure, embarrassed. “Ah, yes, yes it did. Seeing as you’re wearing it, I assume that means you’re waiting for a call?”

  “I am. As I was saying, I intend to remain here for at least two more days. Don’t want to lift my foot off the neck prematurely.”

  “Sensible. I’ll notify Zarya.”

  “Good. Anything else?”

  “Mmh, yes. Dr. Bertram emailed me a few minutes ago, said that we need to speak soon on an important matter.”

  “Something wrong?”

  “There’s very little information in the email, for security reasons, I assume, but it’s about Dr. Deol.”

  The tall figure halted at the mention of the woman heading Quest Biotech, one of Phoenix Corporation’s most crucial subsidiaries, and turned to him. Dr. Nate craned his neck to look at the black void where the Boss’s face was. That damned hood sucks all the light like nothing else. I may as well be looking at a grim reaper.

  “Dr. Deol,” the Boss repeated flatly, “is vital to our plans. I want to know what the problem is, if any, as soon as you do.”

  “Of course.”

  They continued down the hallway. Dr. Nate swiped upward on his tablet and six passport photos appeared on the screen. “Jag Sanchez. Tegan Ryder. Aari Barnes. Mariah Ashton. Kody Tyler. Marshall Sawyer.”

  His superior bristled. “Annoyances. At least they haven’t yet found what they’re looking for. And how many Sentries have we identified?”

  “Aside from Mr. Sawyer, there’s the pair in Montana acting as guards for the urchins’ families, the three that were caught on camera at our nanomite production center in South America, one in Afghanistan and another in Germany. And of course, there’s the… other one.”

  “We need to find their network and take them down. They’ve been destroying our REAPR pods, and let’s not forget what happened to the Quest Defense manufacturing facility in Nevada over the summer.”

  “The damage was substantial,” Dr. Nate said feebly. “And yes, regrettably many pods in North America were destroyed, but we’ve just about won that battle globally.”

  “That’s not the point! The Sentries are undoubtedly coordinating with Dema-Ki. I grow tired of reminding you, Doctor. Under no circumstance should you underestimate them. They have proven to be determined adversaries.”

  “I’m sorry.” Dr. Nate rubbed his forehead, feeling the hairless space where his eyebrows had once been. “Is the plan still to detain the five?”

  “Yes. But we must wait if and until they find the seeds, else other Sentries will continue the hunt. And if the seeds do still exist, I want them in my possession.”

  “I most definitely don’t mean to point out shortcomings, Boss, but when we tried to grab the urchins a few months ago, it didn’t exactly go as planned.”

  “I am quite aware, thank you, but Vladimir has a bigger team this time around.”

  “And what is the plan once we ’ave them?”

  The Boss grunted. “If I had it my way—”

  Dr. Nate looked up at his superior, frowning. “But you do ’ave it your way.”

  “Yes—yes, I do.” The Boss sighed. “I’m a little tired today, Doctor. To answer your question, the plan is that they will be brought to the Heart alive where I will deal with them, and that’s all you need to know… for now.”

  “I understand.” Dr. Nate adjusted his thick glasses and scrolled down his tablet, searching for his next talking point in the file. “As you know, we’ve already begun work on the division of echelons for the Sanctuary. While most are yet to be rolled out, we’ve been working on getting the martial arm in place, vetting candidates who are fit both physically and mentally. Some of your, er, ’ired ’ands are assisting with the training.”

  “Hired hands? That’s a very politically correct thing to call my mercenaries, Doctor. So I take it all is going well?”

  “I dare say it’s better than well, Boss. Our candidates so far are performing excellently. I think they’ll be ready just in time for the final stage of the Arcane Ventures next year.”

  The Boss hummed contentedly, though with the modulator it sounded more like the growl of a wild beast. Dr. Nate patted back his greasy hair, suddenly nervous. Oh, stop it. It’s just the vocal distorter. He cleared his throat. “Is the asset faring well?” he asked. “I ’aven’t seen ’im since we landed.”

  “He’s resting. It was a long journey and he’s proven to be valuable. Don’t worry about him.”

  “As you wish.” Dr. Nate continued scrolling through his tablet, bringing onto the screen an image captured by a CCTV camera. His nose wrinkled and he let out an audible grunt of distaste.

  The Boss leaned over to glimpse the photo. “I see you’re still sour about our visitor.”

  “I want answers and I’m not getting them!” Dr. Nate snarled. “We know the guard found ’im lurking in the town and we know the bugger was at the other Sanctuary, but that’s it!”

  The Boss surprised him by placing a hand on his shoulder. “It won’t do to go in all excited. Calm down.”

  Dr. Nate forced himself to take slow breaths. The pair came to a stop by a long frame of glass set in a wall. The Boss turned to it, arms crossed, and Dr. Nate imagined he felt an icy gust emanate from the hooded figure. He climbed onto a box, placed there specifically for him, and looked in. His blood started to boil again.

  On the other side of the two-way mirror, a man sat in a chair facing them, wrists bound to the armrests and legs tied securely. Dried blood crusted parts of his face from cuts and a split lip. He smirked, like he knew they were watching him. A few feet away from him, a wolfdog lay chained to a wall, heavily sedated.

  Without looking at Dr. Nate, the Boss said, “Get to it, Doctor. He’s waiting.”

  28

  Even standing, Dr. Nate didn’t reach Victor’s eye level. The short man scowled, arms folded. Beside him, a small metal rolling table lined with syringes glinted in the harsh light of the room. One had been emptied into the Sentry’s veins when the doctor entered nearly an hour ago. It was like clockwork; every couple of hours they injected him with a dose.

  From the moment a guard found Victor reconnoitering with Chief in the adjacent town and shot him with a tranquilizer, they’d kept him drugged. The doses suppressed his abilities somehow, not allowing him access to his enhanced hearing, his telepathy, nor his sonokinesis. He’d been held for two days in the same room and only given a single meal. Armed guards were posted right outside the door; he’d been warned that only one of them had a tranquilizer gun.

  He side-eyed Dr. Nate, then looked past him at the two-way glass. I know you’re there.

  Those of Dema-Ki blood were, to varying degrees, attuned to the flow of psycho-emotional energies in the biosphere that they called the fabric of existence, many believing that powerful events or presences affected the fabric. The moment Victor’s plane crossed into Kazakhstan, he’d felt a disturbance like no other; for the briefest moment, it even frightened him. In this room, the sensation came in suffocating waves. It was surreal to be mere feet from the epicenter of the disturbance, separated by a sheet of mirror. It felt colder and even the air felt thinner.

  A sudden slap to his face shook him. Dr. Nate grabbed Victor’s chin roughly and pulled him close. Victor tried not to show it, but the doctor’s rancid breath nearly made him gag.

  “I know you’re a Sentry, so there’s no point in ’iding it,” the short man whispered. “Cooperate. It will be so much easier.”

  Victor’s lips twisted in a derisive smile.

  “’ow did you find this place? What are you doing ’ere?”

  The Sentry’s expression didn’t change.

  “What were you doing in the New Mexico Sanctuary? You dodged the cameras like yo
u knew your way around. Which urchin in there ’elped you?”

  An image of Kenzo flashed in Victor’s head. “Apparently I didn’t dodge all the cameras,” he said.

  “No. You were in the corner frame of a camera outside. We saw you touch the ground and a moment later, the guard at the entrance blacked out. We doubt it’s coincidence.”

  “You keep saying ‘we’, little man. Who might your plural counterpart be? Your almighty boss?”

  Dr. Nate shoved the Sentry’s face away. “You worthless piece of filth. You will never get the bounty of being in the presence of the Boss.”

  Victor lazily jerked his chin at the glass. “I think I’m pretty friggin’ close to that murderous psychopath, don’t you?”

  He watched with satisfaction as the other man clenched and unclenched his fists. Come on, little man. Lose your cool. Do it.

  Dr. Nate turned away from Victor, then wheeled around and struck the Sentry across his jaw. Pain exploded in the side of Victor’s face but he gave another scathing smile. Good. Keep it up.

  The doctor wound his arm back to strike a second time, then stopped and glanced at the glass behind him. His face contorted, then he slowly lowered his hand and straightened his poet shirt. “Make this easy for everyone. The bag you ’ad when you were caught—we found the blue overalls issued by our facilities. We did a full inventory, and there’s one like it missing from our site in New Mexico. You were ’elped by someone inside the Sanctuary.”

  “I don’t need help.”

  Dr. Nate removed his glasses and wiped them, a throbbing vein appearing in his forehead.

  Must be so frustrating, Victor thought, finding a guy with just a bag and his dog. No wallet, no keys, no ID, no phone. Those were safely tucked away in a car in a town across the river. The Sentry couldn’t help but be amused at the turn of events. I was interrogating an uncooperative man just last month. My, how the tables have turned.

  The doctor slid his ice-cold fingertips over Victor’s hands, coming to a rest on the silver rings on each of the Sentry’s middle fingers. “Do these mean something to you?”

  Victor tensed. The doctor pulled the rings off, watching the Sentry carefully as he slid them into his pants’ pocket. Victor’s mouth twitched as he fought back a snarl. Don’t react to anything. You can’t allow that. You’ll get the rings back later. Don’t react.

  Dr. Nate moved closer, holding the armrests, and brought his face right up to Victor’s. The Sentry hated having anyone invade his personal space and tried to press back into the chair away from the doctor. “Whoa, hey. You ought to buy me dinner first if you want to get any closer. I’m kind of old-fashioned like that.”

  The doctor didn’t blink. “Listen to me very closely. Are you listening? Good. We know where the teenagers are.” He paused to study the Sentry’s reaction. “Ahhh, yes, there it is. I see the fear in your eyes now. We know where they are, and we ’ave a team waiting to grab them with just a call from us.”

  “If that’s really the case, why haven’t you picked them up?”

  “That happens when it happens. Just know, we’re following them diligently. If you cooperate with me, I give you my word that they will not be ’armed.”

  Victor looked into the other man’s eyes and realized then that he could never despise another person as much as he did the vermin in front of him. “You,” he murmured through gritted teeth, “will die one day. And I will be the first to kick your ashes into the wind.”

  The doctor leered. “And I was under the impression that Dema-Ki people were supposed to be much kinder, even to your foes.”

  “You indoctrinate kids and turn them into drones. You stole them from their families in the name of, what, a benevolent cause?”

  “Actually, most of those urchins are foster kids. Orphans. They won’t be missed.”

  Victor felt a stab in his chest. “You took advantage of kids without homes? Without families?”

  “We only ’ave one life and what we do with it is all that matters. My work ’as given them new purpose. My work will save them from what’s to come.”

  “Yeah, you keep telling yourself that.”

  Dr. Nate pulled out his phone and looked at it. “I’ve spent nearly two ’ours ’ere already but believe me, I ’ave all the time in the world. I’ll ’ave no trouble using ’arsher methods to get what I need. Now tell me about your group, the lot that you call Sentries.”

  Victor remained silent.

  Dr. Nate walked around the rolling table and picked up a large briefcase nearly as tall as him and opened it. He pulled out a blue gel-like helmet populated with electrodes and micro-LED lights. Victor knew immediately what it was; Tegan and Aari had been threatened with it before.

  “I’m sure you’ve noticed the drugs we use ’ave suppressed your abilities,” Dr. Nate said, turning to the Sentry and displaying the helmet like a proud father. “This ’ere is a wireless optogenetics controller. It—”

  “I know what that is. You reprogram the minds of kids with that hat from hell.”

  “Call it whatever you want. It will give me the information I need.” Dr. Nate stroked the helmet tenderly. “Unfortunately, in order to use it your system ’as to be drug-free, which we can’t afford at this moment. But, please, I dare you to push our buttons further. It will grant me the opportunity to make my case and use it anyway. As a bonus, I’ll get to alter your mind and wipe your identity clean.”

  Victor snorted and looked back at the one-way glass. Why don’t you come in here yourself, instead of letting your cronies get their hands dirty?

  Dr. Nate’s phone rang. He looked at the caller ID and clucked his tongue but didn’t answer it. He returned his attention to the Sentry. “Eh? What’s the matter with you?”

  Victor’s eyes were closed, his head lolled to the side. Dr. Nate grabbed his face and shook it. “Stop fooling around! I am not falling for this trick, you ’ear me? Open your eyes!” The shaking got more frantic. “’ey! Open your eyes! Open! Damn it!”

  A modulated voice came over the intercom. “Is there a problem, Doctor?”

  “I… I’m not sure, Boss. It could be that the dosage of the last injection was a bit much.”

  “You filled it up yourself, didn’t you?”

  “I did the other ones but a guard ’elped me with this batch. Boss, I ’ad a ’undred different things to deal with today and I wasn’t trying to—”

  “Is he faking it?”

  Dr. Nate delivered a powerful backhand, leaving a stark red mark on the Sentry’s face, but the man didn’t budge. “I don’t think so, Boss.”

  “I want him alive, Doctor. Will your mistake kill him?”

  “N-no! It shouldn’t. I mean, it won’t. This ape should come out of it shortly.”

  “I want you to keep an eye on him until he does. I have some matters to attend to.”

  “Y-yes, Boss. But… permission to step outside? Bertram called me a minute ago.”

  “You have two minutes. Have the guards with him while you’re out.”

  All three guards walked in, shutting the door after Dr. Nate stepped out, and watched the Sentry closely.

  Victor was perfectly fine, aside from the slap he’d received—that smarted quite a lot. He’d felt the effects of the drugs slowly waning over the past few minutes and didn’t want to have another injection numb his abilities again. One by one he tested them. Concussion blasts aren’t working. Telepathy’s kind of okay, I can sense some people in the novasphere. Hearing… let’s try it out on the little man.

  Working through the drugs to access his abilities was akin to wading through a pool of molasses. As painstakingly slow as it was, he managed to tune his hearing just enough. He picked up Dr. Nate’s voice and a second on the other end of his phone call.

  “… I’ve had my doubts for a while, Nate. Dr. Deol hasn’t been herself lately. It’s like someone killed the chatterbox in her. She’s been reporting to me for almost six years now and I have never seen her like this. She’s
been quiet and aloof the last couple of weeks. I think… I think she might be losing faith in the cause.”

  “This is a woman who’s been unshakably loyal to the Boss’s vision,” Dr. Nate said. “Are you certain about this, Bertram? For goodness’ sake, she created the Marauders and engineered both viruses, so you’ll excuse me if I find it ’ard to believe she’d jump ship now.”

  “I know! But you have to remember, she’s a doctor and a scientist first. Creating the Marauders was more of a pet project. She never got to really see the devastation the beasts caused first-hand. With the disease, it’s different. We’re seeing its effects everywhere and she knows that her hands are stained with blood.”

  “She’s made of stern stuff, Bertram.”

  “All the same, I think this has to be contained.”

  “First, ’ave you tried talking to her?”

  “No, but I will.”

  “You do that. Let me know if it’s worse than it seems or it’s just a case of ’er needing a pep talk.”

  “I’ll do what I can, but my gut tells me that we’re losing her.”

  “Keep me posted. I want to know if she’s salvageable.”

  “If not?”

  “She’s too valuable and she knows too much. I’ll run it by the Boss. You’re not too attached to ’er, are you, Bertram?”

  “She’s a delightful woman and a good friend, but I know this cause is larger than any one of us. And she has the anti-viral formula in her head. It’s a potentially volatile situation.”

  “Precisely. Is she still at the lab in Moscow?”

  “The last I checked, yes. She’s called in sick twice this week already.”

  “I’ll inform the Boss. Make sure you get back to me immediately once you’ve spoken to ’er.”

  “I will.”

  Victor pulled back. A horrible migraine started to claw its way through his head. He remained as still as possible but the throbbing was too much. He flinched, grimacing, hands clenched, just as Dr. Nate walked back in. When the doctor saw him, he sprinted toward the table and grabbed a syringe. As he plunged the needle into the Sentry’s neck, Victor sent out a broken telepathic blast to Marshall with the last bit of energy he could muster. As the drug burned its way into his system, he roared, thrashing his head from side to side. It felt as though his entire head was afire from the inside out and someone kept pouring gasoline.