One of the things I had dug into the hardest was SciSec Development, McPherson's weapons company that had folded due to the scandal over its use of homeless people in experiments. And what interested me most about SciSec were those employees who had suffered as the result of McPherson's amoral experiments. The ones who went to prison got what they deserved. They knew what they were doing but ignored their moral obligation in return for large sums of money. They didn't interest me. The ones who interested me were the researchers who were unaware of what was going on. Who were closely involved with the development of the various weapons, but who were removed from the human experiments. I discovered that most of them had little to no idea what was going on. But just the name "SciSec" on their resume was enough to brand them. Few of them found a job in research after that.
The one who interested me the most was Dr. Helmut Vienz. Vienz had written a paper entitled, "Particle Acceleration in Specified Densities", which he presented at a symposium in Prague in 2055 that had caught McPherson's attention. It became the basis for a weapon that would accelerate the sub-atomic particles in a person's body which massively increased body temperature. The end result would be the spontaneous combustion of flesh and organs. The enemy's body would burst into flame. Vienz thought his work at SciSec was purely theoretical. McPherson used Vienz's work to create a prototype weapon that was tested on human subjects. With some success. It was a female lab assistant who witnessed a human trial on an elderly bag lady that was successful who became so overcome with guilt that she reported what was going on to the authorities. And that began the unraveling of SciSec.
Vienz was undeservedly branded. He went into seclusion. He was living in a cabin in the Rocky Mountains just beyond Colorado's Front Range, more than sixty miles outside of Pueblo. Which was why I was there. It had taken some serious digging, but I'd found him. If anyone could provide me with what I needed I felt it would be him.
It was a brilliant Tuesday morning. I rented a used car from a dealer on the north end of town. He wanted $2,000 but I talked him down to $500. I gave him the $500 plus a $2,000 deposit, took the keys, and headed out. I got on I-25 and headed south until I found the exit for Route 96, which I took west. The crisp air coming through my window was refreshing, and the fusion engine just purred. I stayed on 96 for over forty-five minutes, then made a right onto an unmarked, unnumbered, blacktop road that just had a sign for "Bear Basin Ranch". The road was tar and chip for five miles, then turned to dirt. I followed that trail for another twenty miles, finally arriving at a turn-off marked by a hand painted wooden sign that read, "Bald Eagle Drive". A mile later I arrived at the crest of a hill that was covered in Ponderosa pines. A small log cabin sat off to my left. There was a battered Jeep sitting just to the left of the wooden door. A thin wisp of smoke wafted up from the stone chimney. I turned into the dirt drive and parked next to the Jeep. The wooden front door opened and a white haired man of probably seventy stepped out onto the wooden stoop, a quizzical expression on his weathered, heavily bearded face. His hair was shoulder length, thick, and silvery white, matching his beard. A pair of granny glasses rested on the tip of his nose. He was wearing a blue and black checked flannel shirt, jeans, and work boots. He stood erect, all five feet six inches of him. He was thin, but looked very healthy.
I shut off the car, opened the door, and stepped out.
"Hello?", he said. "May I help you?", he asked with just a hint of a German accent.
"I'm hoping you can, Dr. Vienz."
He stared at me for several seconds while I approached him, stopping five feet short of his porch, then said, "Interesting that you know who I am. How did you find me?"
"Believe me, it wasn't easy."
"That's good to know. Because I don't want to be found."
"I understand."
"Do you?"
"I think I do. Dr. Vienz, I believe that you are a man of honor. You have suffered for things you did not do. You have been unfairly punished for things you did not do, in ways that should have been reserved for someone who is much your inferior."
"Kind words. But they do not explain why you are here."
"To ask for your help."
"In what way?"
"To accomplish something I believe we both want."
"And what might that be?"
"The destruction of Edward McPherson."
He stared at me for a long twenty seconds, then nodded his head slightly and said, "Come inside. Please."
Two hours and a bottle of scotch I'd brought with me later and Dr. Vienz and I were close friends. It turned out I was the first Servian he'd ever knowingly met. He was fascinated and asked a million questions. I answered them to the best of my ability. Then I asked him about his time with SciSec. He filled me in on everything that McPherson had been doing. Some of the experiments were beyond inhuman. Vienz hadn't found out until long after the FBI had destroyed his reputation, long after he'd lost all standing in the scientific community, and long after McPherson had left the country for an extended cruise on his $50 million yacht. Vienz had survived doing freelance work for small companies trying to cash in on the burgeoning business of quantum computing. He'd eked out a living, and was now more or less retired. He still took the odd contract to provide someone with mathematical confirmation of something they were working on, but for the most part he spent his days reading and hiking in the mountains. I noticed a large collection the old tiny movie chips on his end table and a dilapidated holographic projector in the corner.
"They're all pirated copies. I had to coble together a projector from odd parts. I couldn't afford a new one. And I certainly can't afford to buy the ether copies. That bottle of scotch you were kind enough to bring is the first of that kind of luxury I've enjoyed in well over two years." And he chuckled. "I guess I should be thankful that I didn't wind up in prison. But, still, what I and so many others went through is unforgivable. We had no idea what McPherson was engaged in. If we had known we would have burned the pavement up getting to the authorities. The man is a monster!"
"Yes, Doctor. That he is."
"But, forgive an old man. I'm permitting myself to wallow in my own self pity. What I have endured is nothing compared to being forced to watch the love of your life being executed. I'm sorry."
I shook my head. "Not necessary, Dr. Vienz. You're not to blame."
He nodded slowly. "You mentioned that you want to destroy McPherson. I wish you success. But, how can an old, discarded, foolish researcher help?"
"There are a couple of things I'm hoping you might be able to do for me."
"Such as?"
"Is there any possible way that you could put together a neural programmer?"
"You mean the things they use to program Servians' neural pathways?"
"Precisely."
He thought a few seconds. "I suppose it's possible. If I could find the schematics."
"I can get those for you."
"Can you find the parts?"
"You tell me what you need, I'll find it."
He grinned. "As Mr. Spock would have said, 'Fascinating'. But what do you plan to do with it?"
"Build an invincible soldier."
"Really? Who?"
"Me."
And so we went to work. Vienz invited me to stay with him. I accepted. The next morning he followed me into Pueblo to return the car. The dealer tried refusing to give me back the deposit until Dr. Vienz asked him how he'd like to never have access to another computer the rest of his life. He promised the guy he could make it happen and that it would only take him about three minutes on the computer back in his cabin. The guy grumbled, but handed over the money. We then bought some supplies and headed back to his place. He had a quantum connection that he'd put together himself, and it was quite good. I went to work infiltrating various databases to get the plans for the neural programmer. It took me a week of twelve hour days, but I had finally gotten the schematics we needed. After that it was one month, several trips to Pueblo, two trips
to Denver, and we finally had a programmer. It certainly wasn't pretty, but it seemed to work. His computer indicated that everything was functioning as it should.
I had been able to provide the nice Doctor with something he hadn't had in years. Good cooking. The man was hopeless. I became convinced he could burn water. I'll never forget the night I made veal marsala. I'd bought a bottle of cheap chianti to go with it. I thought he was going to cry. In the month it took us to scrabble together the programmer I think he put on ten pounds.
We had spent countless hours, and several bottles of scotch, going over exactly what it was that I wanted. I'd downloaded an enormous amount of software, and he had written volumes of code patching it all together, but in the end we had a workable system. Now it was time to put it to put it to use.
"I've said this before, Amy," Dr. Vienz reiterated as we relaxed over drinks the night before we were to use the device on me, "this is very risky. We have no way to test this piece of equipment first. We could wind up doing the opposite of what you want. This could easily turn into a disaster. You could wind up a mental vegetable."
"And I'll say what I've said each time you've brought this up. Yes, you are absolutely right. And I am well aware of that. But the fact remains that there is only one thing in my life that keeps me going. Only one reason I get up every day. Edward McPherson. One of us is going to be destroyed. And if it turns out to be me, so long as it was in the process of trying to bring him down, then that's a risk I'm willing to accept. Look," I said as he took a sip of his scotch, "you know full well that this isn't something I'm going into half cocked. I spent weeks looking at every scientist who was involved with SciSec. McPherson had staffed the company with the best minds he could find. And yours was, and still is, one of the best of the best. I'm not putting myself in your hands blindly. I know who you are, and I'm well aware of what your mind can do. I've been watching you closely for the last month. If there's one person on the planet I trust to pull this off, it's you."
"You are being too kind."
"No, Helmut, I'm not. I'm being practical. If I thought for one minute that there was someone who could give me a one percent better chance I wouldn't be sitting here. You're the man. You're the one who will pull this off. So stop worrying about it. I'm not." Then I grinned at him and raised my glass. "Here's to tomorrow!"
He grinned back and raised his glass in response. "Tomorrow!"
My eyes fluttered and opened. Everything was blurry. I heard a voice that sounded like it was in a barrel that was a hundred yards away. I finally realized the voice was calling to me.
"Amy? Amy, can you hear me?" I looked to my left and saw a fuzzy figure staring down at me. Slowly my vision cleared. "Can you hear me? Are you all right? Do you know who I am?"
"Yeah," I said, my voice raspy, "I'm OK. I think."
"Do you recognize me?"
"Yes, Dr. Vienz, I recognize you."
"Do you know where you are?"
I rolled my head from side to side taking in my surroundings. "Looks like I'm in your bed up in your loft."
"Ah, very good!" Then he proceeded to ask me a bunch of mundane questions. What month was it? Who was the President? Why was I in his cabin?
"You were supposed to reprogram me. Did the machine work OK?"
He smiled. "Well, it did something. Not sure exactly what until we put you through some tests. How are you feeling?"
"A little weak, but OK. So, how long was I out?"
"Two days."
"What?! Two days? Why so long?"
"Keep in mind, Amy, I've been scrambling your brain. I suspect it has taken your synapses a while to adapt. I think your brain wanted you out of the way while it did its work."
I sat up and was mildly dizzy. "Take it easy young lady. There's no rush."
Down in the large one room living area he warmed some food I'd prepared before he put me under. Given his disastrous lack of ability in the kitchen I didn't want him starving or me waking up to a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. After spaghetti with marinara sauce and a single glass of white wine we began the tests.
Seven hours later we sat down on his sofa, scotch in hand. I now had a photographic memory. He had handed me long lists of various things and only allowed me to glimpse them for two seconds each. City maps, history lessons, mazes, chemical compounds, schematics, blueprints, you name it. Anything I saw I could immediately recall down to the tiniest detail. He put me into holographic combat games. I aced each of them on the first effort no matter how complex, no matter what environment, how many opponents, or what weapons I had at my disposal. I had the reflexes of a cat and the cunning of a fox. I also found that my mind seemed to operate in hyperdrive whenever I was in a tense situation. Time seemed to slow to a crawl, and I was able to map out my situation, analyze it, plan a variety of responses, anticipate the likely success of each, select the best option, and implement it, all within a split second.
He had reprogrammed my learning abilities to the point where I could grasp anything, even the most complex concepts. I found myself able to understand and retain anything. I set about devouring the things I knew I was going to need. He modified my metabolism. The next morning I started martial arts training with a holographic instructor. I trained twelve hours a day, and in four weeks I mastered what normal humans would take years. I began intensive physical training, and, coupled with a well planned diet, began developing muscle tone immediately. I was soon running ten miles every morning and evening.
After two months I felt I was as ready as I was likely to ever get. Dr. Vienz drove me to Denver and bought a plane ticket to L. A. for me in his name. Hopefully, if McPherson was monitoring the airlines, which was likely, he wouldn't notice. From L. A. I would catch the tube to Oakland, and then cab into San Francisco. At the security checkpoint we stopped. I turned to him, put my arms around the man, and hugged him tightly.
"I don't know what to say", I whispered in his ear.
"Say you're going to take that malignant parasite down."
I smiled. "Count on it. But what I mean is, I don't know how to thank you."
"Then, don't try. Amy, I owe you vastly more than you could ever owe me. I was sitting on the top of that mountain, basically just waiting to die. Until I heard your car pull into my drive. That day you changed everything for me. You put purpose back in my life. Something I hadn't had in over two decades. You have allowed me to reclaim my dignity. You gave me a reason to get up every morning. There's no price that anyone could ever put on that. No, it is I who thanks you.
"Now, young lady, go. No more foolishness. No tears, no sad goodbyes. You will be back. And when you come you will tell me everything. I will want every detail."
"I promise", I said, and we hugged again. "Oh, one last thing. I need one final piece of information from you." I told him what it was and he got a very quizzical expression on his face.
"Why on earth would you need that?"
"You'll see." He gave me the information, then I kissed him on the cheek and turned and walked into the security check area, waving at him over my shoulder.
McPherson's home was a lavish houseboat anchored across the bay from the city of San Francisco on the waterfront in the town of Sausalito. Actually, it wasn't a boat. It was a full sized barge, equipped with a large swimming pool, cabanas, a putting green, and gardens. I had found an article on line about his home. He had been kind enough to tell the author that he preferred the floating home for reasons of personal security. He felt it would be easier to secure a place that was sitting on the water and surrounded by similar, if considerably smaller, homes. Much harder, to his way of thinking, to approach a houseboat unnoticed than to scale the walled compound of a typical mansion. Wrong.
All it took was a wet suit, swim fins, and a simple snorkel.
I waited until 2:00 A. M. McPherson had just returned from a trip to Kuala Lumpur, which I was able to discover by accessing Genetedyne's web site and checking press releases. He had entertained an escort unti
l close to midnight. She'd left via his limousine, then he'd turned in. I had watched them by means of a palm sized infra-red scanner, then, after her departure and his turning off his lights, driven to my entry point into the water at a pier a half mile from his home. I fought a very mild current, and the swim took me a little over twenty minutes. His home was easy to pick out due to its size and the lights surrounding the place that blazed all night long. His neighbors had complained repeatedly, but McPherson's money always managed to trump their rights.
I emerged from the water directly under the aft end of his barge, then eased my way to the ladder at the north end. He had thoughtfully provided the means of egress from the water, mostly for the use of his guests who wanted to arrive at one of his soirees by boat, but I made a mental note to thank him for his consideration when I saw him. I grasped the bottom rung of the ladder then stripped off my mask, fins, and snorkel. I let them all slip away without giving them a second thought. I grabbed the rung with both hands and hauled myself up hand over hand to a point where I could get my knee wedged onto the bottom rung. I then took one hand and reached into a slender waterproof pouch slung over my shoulder and withdrew a classic Sig Sauer P239 Dak. I had chosen this particular gun due to the fact that it was the smallest .357 automatic I could find. It held seven sub-sonic hollow point rounds in the magazine and one in the chamber. I had one backup magazine. I'd managed to outfit the gun with a homemade silencer fashioned from a metal flashlight body. I'd found the plans for the silencer on line. As McPherson had adequately demonstrated, he had no problem with his employees killing people. I assumed that his bodyguards would have standing orders to shoot first and ask questions later. So anyone voluntarily employed by McPherson to carry a gun merited no mercy from me.
The Helpers: A Novelette Page 3