by S L Shelton
“Shit. Okay. Which way then?”
Jo pulled her laptop from the back seat and unplugged the car charger. As the last of the train cars swept past the crossing and the gates lifted, she pointed to the left. “Turkey Hollow Road, just past the tracks.”
They followed the slow-moving line of vehicles to the tracks and turned when traffic stopped again, driving on the shoulder a short way to the intersection. Ahead, a line of sheriff’s vehicles pulled to a halt at the end of Main Street.
“That’s the roadblock,” Jo said as they made their left.
Before she could turn forward again, a high-pitched squeal to their rear startled her. Marsh gunned the engine and pulled forward just in time as a line of black SUVs with flashing lights rushed past, chirping their sirens and honking as they drove down the wrong side of the street toward the roadblock.
Marsh drove them down the narrower Turkey Hollow Road, and Jo turned around to watch the emergency vehicles. The SUVs rushed past the sheriff’s roadblock, turned left, then sped north along Butler Street—the street she and Marsh were originally routed to take.
“This is bad,” Marsh said. “I don’t think we should be heading toward the safe house. I think it’s been blown.”
Panic flooded Jo’s senses. “We don’t know that. We should get a little closer and—”
A flash of light and a rumble in the distance interrupted her plea. Marsh stopped in the middle of the road and looked toward the safe house. On the other side of the tree line, a ball of flame and smoke swirled into the air, ending the debate.
Marsh calmly turned the Civic around in the road and drove back toward town, turning right onto Main Street, then back out of town the way they had come. Jo typed furiously on her laptop, trying to find a message from the team on Craigslist.
As they returned to the highway, she found a disturbing entry on Craigslist—Morocco—the site for emergency communications.
Under missed connections, posted only five minutes earlier. He hadn’t had time to encrypt it, so it was posted in the open:
DarkWish, dark things are inbound, like you. Don’t be. Latin, for all accounts, burned. ALL accounts. Disappear. No road to us. I love you. TB.
Jo closed the top of her computer and sat, frozen, her gut turning knots, stifling her breath. “We have to find a new safe house,” she said after a minute of silence, letting the lone tear drop from her chin before speaking. “And we have to stop using all the Latin American accounts.”
Marsh looked in the back seat at the bags of equipment and clothes. “How much cash do we have with us?”
Jo shrugged absently. “Twenty or twenty-five thousand.”
“That’ll hold us for a while…at least until we join back up with our group or Scott’s.”
She made no effort to respond. It took all her effort just not to explode in tears and rage.
Marsh glanced at her. “Was there a message? What did he say?”
Jo wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “He said good-bye.”
twelve
Thursday, May 5th
Time Unknown — Location Unknown
I woke sitting in the front seat of a Mercedes SUV. My first conscious sensation was a burning in my chest.
Breathe!
I sucked in a ragged breath then muttered, “shit,” on the exhale.
“Are you okay?”
I turned to see Seifert peering into the dark through night vision goggles. “Yeah. Just…” Nothing. No excuse came to mind.
“You were in the middle of a sentence and just went quiet.”
I racked my memory trying to come up with something, anything to say, but no matter how I reached out to Wolf, nothing came to mind—and my lungs started burning again.
Breathe!
“What was I saying?” I replied with cover so thin even I found it pathetic.
Seifert glanced at me then back out the window. “That Pietr Loukis is the only one we don’t know for certain is being held against his will.”
“Right, so that’s why…” Shit! That’s why what? Goddamn it Wolf, leave me a note or something when you do this shit!
“That’s why we’re going after him first…and because he’s the closest.”
I nodded. “Right.”
Seifert shook his head. “He wasn’t the closest. What the fuck is up with you? You said you’re having memory problems, but I didn’t know you meant Alzheimer's.”
I stared forward, embarrassed I’d been revealed as a fraud.
“Do you at least know who I am?”
“Of course I do,” I snapped, then grinned. “How could I forget the President who freed the slaves.”
He snapped his head around to see me stifling a chuckle. With a backhanded slap to my chest, he grinned. “Seriously though,” he said through a laugh, then went deadpan suddenly. “I’d feel better if you said my name.”
“Seifert, Majesty, Queen of SEAL team nine.”
He nodded. “Okay, okay. Just making sure you know not to aim a weapon my direction.”
“It’s short-term memory that’s a problem, and it’s because of the swelling around the bullet.”
“I thought the bullet was out.”
I touched a finger to my forehead and rubbed the sutures on the wound. It’s out? “The wound in general.”
He nodded. We sat in silence for a while as I attempted to wake Wolf since he had been so rude as to awaken me without the benefit of a briefing.
Breathe!
“Why do you keep doing that?” Seifert asked.
“What?”
“Gasping. You go a few minutes then gasp. You in pain or something?”
I sighed and let my lungs deflate completely, then tried to draw again without gasping. It took some effort, but my breath came more evenly that time. “Constant pain,” I replied. “Stabbing, burning, piercing pain, from my skull to the tip of my dick.”
“Well, I don’t know about your skull,” he said with one eyebrow hooked high. “But it’s been my experience that if you’ve got burning in your dick, a shot of penicillin might be in order.”
I looked at him, then forward again before bursting into laughter. The muscle contractions felt good, as well as the relief it brought to my constricted chest and guts—like a good stretch after a long nap, I felt somewhat renewed.
“Quiet,” he snapped. “We aren’t that far away from the villa.”
Oh, shit. We’re on an Op…what am I gonna do now?
Seifert took the goggles off and turned to me, resting his arm on the center console. “I’m going to assume you don’t remember why we’re here,” he said then held up his hand. “Don’t bother with the denial. You said you’d do that.”
Shit. Even Wolf is ratting me out now.
“Am I right?” He asked when I stayed silent too long.
I nodded.
He nodded in return and opened the console before withdrawing a syringe. “Okay. Well, you also told me that if you suddenly couldn’t remember things, I should give you this shot.”
I put my hand out to stop him. “Now wait a second. Just give me a second to—”
“You said you’d say that, too. But that I’m supposed to give it to you anyway.”
“What’s in it?” I asked.
“You didn’t tell me. You just said to tell you it’s a neuro-stimulant that should bring your memory back.”
I didn’t want that damned shot, I didn’t want Seifert knowing I was having memory problems, and I didn’t want that damned shot. “Give me a min—”
He jabbed it in my arm and pushed the plunger. A cold swept into my bloodstream. “Dammit, Majesty.”
“Just following your orders. Even John says you’re still in charge. I can’t disobey a direct order.”
“Except the one to hold on a minute.”
Seifert chuckled. “Just close your eyes and let it do its job.”
A burning in my chest reminded me that…wait…what’s that supposed to remind me to do?
Oh, yeah. Breathe!
I closed my eyes and became vaguely aware that Seifert was talking to me again. Something about one chance, being clearheaded, and mission aborts. Darkness swallowed me. That’s no neuro-stimulant. It’s a sedative!
“That’s right.”
I turned to see Wolf sitting in my green chair. Not as odd as it might seem considering I now stood in my condo living room.
“Why?” I asked. “How is this helping anything?”
“I’ll get to that. We have another problem. You still can’t breathe or move without conscious effort, and we have to do something about that first.”
I nodded as I sat on the edge of my coffee table. Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t, but since it wasn’t real, I didn’t care if the buttons on my pockets scratched the wood. “That would be nice. Let’s talk about that.”
“The problem isn’t that you don’t have the ability. The problem is that the place in your brain that did it automatically has been moved…you just haven’t found it yet.”
An angry flush burned my cheeks. “Well, then move it back!”
He shook his head. “I can’t. That part of your brain isn’t there anymore. The bullet did a lot of damage.”
I reached up and touched the place where the bullet had entered my head—the skin was smooth and unblemished.
“Dream world,” Wolf said. “The wound is still there.”
I nodded. “So, what am I supposed to do when you drop me back in my body? I can’t remember anything…including how to breathe.”
“Trust me, it’s not by choice. Our friend Mike Nance did a good job of removing the bullet, but then he dosed us with a reconfigured second Gen Ambux…using your DNA.”
“What does that mean?”
Wolf leaned forward in the chair. “It means I’m being written out of your brain…he gave you the cure for me.”
I stood, panicked. “Why the hell would he do that? He didn’t ask first?”
Wolf shook his head and stood up before walking into the kitchen to pour a cup of coffee.
He pushed it over to me, then poured himself one. “When I showed up to have the bullet removed, he figured out you weren’t in the seat of your consciousness.”
“How?”
Wolf took a sip and shrugged. “We aren’t the same person, you and me. I try to approximate your quirks, flaws, and idiosyncrasies, but there’s a roughness to them when applied through pure data recall.”
“So, he thought you’d taken over like Gallow’s demon had.”
Wolf nodded.
“Didn’t you explain that it would kill me if you stopped making my heart beat?”
“I tried. But he wasn’t much interested in what I had to say once he had me strapped down.” He set his cup down and looked up at the ceiling. “I really am going to miss all this.”
I felt like someone I loved had just told me they were dying of an incurable disease.
“Let’s go back to Nance. Maybe he can undo the—”
“It’s too late for that. Anything he could do now would just make soup of the changes already occurring. I’m being overwritten.”
“Overwritten with what?”
“Clean pathways…using your DNA. Your body is literally erasing me, one synapse at a time.”
“I’m…I’m sorry. I never wanted this.”
He nodded sadly. “I know. But before you start planning the funeral, let’s figure out what we’re going to do about your autonomic functions and motor control.”
I sat down again. “Okay. How do we do that?”
“I can’t just rewire you. The changes would be overwritten, and you’d be back in the same boat,” he said, taking his mug and returning to the living room. “So, I’m going to have to teach you how to rewire it yourself.”
“How?”
“Memory dump. I’m going to provide a temporary pathway to the new location of memories, autonomic and nervous system functions, and you are going to have to remember how to get back there on your own…I can only do it once.”
“Why once?”
He smiled and put his hand on my shoulder. “Because as soon as I do it, your body is going to recognize it as foreign and start rewriting it.”
“Shit.”
“Epic shit. Go for breathing and heartbeat first. Lock in the memory of how it feels, then go for the other stuff.”
“What happens if I can’t?” I asked.
He sat down in the green chair and cradled the coffee mug. “That’s not an option. You have to.”
“Talk about working without a net.”
He nodded.
“When do we start?”
“Now,” he replied, and a stab of pain filled my head, radiating from behind my ears to my eyes.
“Wait! I’m not ready.”
“Ready is irrelevant. It needs to be done, take your breath, and feel your heart. Those are the most important things.”
As if transported inside myself, I saw my lungs expand, their spiracles opening then rhythmically closing and my lungs collapsing. Relief filled my body as air pulsed into my veins, then coursed through to my heart. The sound was deafening as I watched the slow roll of current over the surface of my heart muscle, contracting one side, then continuing its roll, releasing and contracting the other chambers. It beat impossibly fast, hot, burning my chest.
“Calm down. Follow the flow and slow it down,” he said over the drum of my heart.
With each breath, I tried to feel and reduce my pulse rate. I counted the beats, immersing myself in the whoosh of blood from each contraction. After a hundred or so beats, I realized the rhythm was my own and began to calm down.
“Good,” Wolf said from somewhere outside my body. “Now slow it down more. Forty beats per minute.”
I relaxed into my body and felt myself merging with my circulatory system. I felt each artery, vein, and vessel as pressure increased on the contraction, then relaxed on the release. I’d never felt so much sensation at one time in my life. This is what it feels like to have a body—to know what each muscle and stimulus feels like.
“Excellent,” Wolf said. “You always were a fast learner.”
“Motor control,” I whispered, fearful that saying it louder would snap me from my journey like a lucid dream, broken by my own voice.
“It’s the same. Picture movement and follow the neural path. Embody the movement. Remember where the signal comes from and how it flows.”
I willed my legs to move, simple steps across an imaginary floor. Each thought triggered a neural response, a charge of minute electricity that flowed through my nerves and spine to the muscles they controlled. After several steps, I had isolated the origin and the pathways.
“Good,” Wolf said. “Try something harder.”
I lifted my arm and began executing the Goju-ryu first kata. Slowly, patiently feeling and following the flow of signals to my limbs. I literally felt the tug of electricity at the call to my muscles—something I’d been so oblivious to my entire life, now the pallet from which I painted motion.
As the movements became more fluid, I increased the speed of my limbs until Goju-ryu was no longer a suitable exercise. I switched to Krav Maga and sparred with an invisible opponent. More so than even when Kobe had trained me, I felt the perfection of my movements; precise, confident. If I could think it, my body would respond.
“What are my limits like this?” I asked, throwing kicks, windmills, roundhouse punches, seemingly faster than I’d ever performed.
“You’re still flesh and blood. You need oxygenation, muscle recovery time, and the removal of lactic acid build up with overextension,” he replied, snapping me out of my body with a touch on my shoulder. “But with this awareness, you can mitigate those things far better than most adversaries, and your healing time is reduced. When you can control blood and oxygenation, you can target injured areas with more attention.”
“Is this how you do it? Is this how you control my body and heal my wounds so fast?
”
He nodded. “It’s always been there. You just needed to be shown the way in.”
I sat in the green chair, exhausted. “What about memories?”
“Here’s the thing; you have been asleep for more than two months.” He sat on the table in front of me. “But more than that, I’ve been rewriting your thoughts, memories, and pathways for more than fifteen years. Most of your brain has my fingerprints on it, and the new Ambux strain doesn’t like that.”
“What does that mean?”
He dropped his head and nodded as if trying to decide something. “It means that it’s going to hurt as those thoughts relocate into your memory. But you can’t stop once you begin.” He patted my arm sympathetically. “If you stop after you’ve exposed them, your brain, or rather the Ambux, will sweep in and erase them…they’ll be lost forever.”
My memories, my thoughts, my emotions; wiped away like a dirty chalkboard. “How is that going to affect you?”
He shrugged. “Your guess is good as mine. It’s my first time.”
I stared at him for a moment, looking at the smooth skin of his forehead, the lack of scars and burns on his arms and chest in the V of his button-down safari shirt. He mirrored the me I’d have been if not for all the damage to my body over the past year. I hated him for reminding me who I could have been if not for the world I’d stepped into last April.
“One more thing. I won’t be able to touch anything once it’s moved. I won’t be able to show you anything, or take over any function after you’ve remade it in your image. If I do, the Ambux will attack it.”
“So that’s it? After you do this thing and I go to work, that’s it for you and me?”
“I’m not sure. Again, this is all new to me. But I can’t do anything that will leave my fingerprints on any synapse.”
I thought I actually saw sadness on his face. “So, then this is effectively good-bye.”
“In a way. Yes. Any relationship we have beyond this will be much reduced. Maybe absent. I have until your memories coalesce in their new locations.”
As difficult as it was to hear this news, I wanted it to be over. I wanted Combine finished, my vengeance satisfied at the murder of the only girl I’d ever loved, and then I wanted it over. Over, fucking over.