Brain Storm (US Edition)

by Nicola Lawson

  Carla missed the rest of whatever would have been said because at that moment the door was shoved open aggressively and she was thrown onto her back. Her head banged against the side wall of the cell and her teeth were clacked together. She sat there rubbing her back and her head as the two guards came into the cell.

  The dark one came inside first, he had been the one who opened the door, and looked down at Carla. "It isn't polite to listen in on other people's conversations."

  The ginger one came in around the other and waved the end of his tazer-like stun-stick in her face. He started it up so that a charge arced between the pair of prongs and pushed it at her nose. Carla pushed herself back but the wall of her cell impeded her movement. At the last moment before it made contact with her face he switched the device off. He went ahead and shoved the metal prongs into her cheeks under her eyes. The prongs were hot from transmitting the charge and the touch burned her skin.

  He took the prongs away and Carla dared to breathe again. She had broken out in a terror sweat with the electricity shoved in her face and now her skin was clammy. A rivulet of sweat ran down between her shoulder blades and continued down along the edge of her spine.

  "Roll up your sleeve," the dark one directed her.

  When she was slow in complying the ginger one gave a feral grin and activated his stun-stick again. Carla hurried to pull the sleeve up to her left elbow. Ginger kept the charge going while dark hair fixed his own weapon to the side of his belt. He opened a pouch on his opposite hip beside an empty holster. From inside the pouch he drew a plastic cylinder about ten or fifteen centimeters long. Then from inside that he drew out a needle and syringe.

  Carla's pulse was already racing in fear but now it felt like her heart was going to explode with the pressure. Sweat beaded on her forehead and rolled down her cheeks from her temples. She didn't want them to start pumping unknown substances into her body. She tried to crawl away but the wall still prevented her from retreating.

  "Give me your arm," the darker one commanded.

  Reluctantly Carla held a shaking arm up away from her body but kept it quite close as though to protect it. The dark one grabbed her arm at the wrist and pulled it to extend it towards him. He handed the syringe off to his companion while tied a band around her arm just below the elbow. The band was tightened until Carla was forced to gasp from the pain. The ginger guard returned the syringe and the tip of the slender needle was moved up against the raised veins on the underside of her forearm.

  She felt it as the needle pricked her skin and was pushed up through it into her vein. Carla wanted to pull her arm away, but even if it hadn't still been held in place by the guard she wasn't sure she would have dared to in case it caused her further injury. Of course whatever they were going to put into her could be meant to do just that.

  The dark one decided the needle was far enough inside her and he reached back to the end of the syringe. Instead of pushing the plunger down to force drugs into her bloodstream he pulled back on it and the main chamber of the syringe started to fill with the blood that was being pulled out of her. When the chamber was filled the syringe was pulled out of her arm and the grip on her arm was released.

  The two guards left the room leaving Carla to take the band off her arm. Blood continued to pump in drops out of the hole in her arm and she held her hand over the wound to try and stop the flow.

  ***************

  The redolence of cooking meat and onions fried to burning point was always the first thing that alerted Sara that she was almost upon the ECSIS building. It was open what sometimes seemed like twenty-four hours a day. For the few hours when it was closed, between approximately three in the morning after the clubs closed and six or seven when the first office workers stopped by after missing breakfast or the dirty-stop-out brigade made their way home, the spot where the hot-dog stand stood would still smell the same. It was as though the surrounding area soaked up the smell and let it out in its absence. The stones, brick and concrete were permeated by tiny molecules that struggled free in the quite areas that struggled free and lingered haunting the spot until the vendor returned.

  Today business was booming with a queue of people waiting to be served their reprocessed meat in a bun with limp onions and dollops of yellow or red gunk. The pink sausages sat in a metal container built into the cart next to a similar container with smoldering onions. On an island between the two stood squeezable condiment bottle in red and yellow with tracks of semi-liquid in matching colors running down from funnel caps. A box of napkins to serve the hot-dogs rested beside the bottles.

  The man doling out the delights was one of the usual suspects in the uniform striped shirt and trousers, a matching hat tried to contain an unruly mass of greasy black curls. Serving a customer with one hand the young man wiped the other on his trousers and then placed it on the underside of the rim of the cart. He moved his hand a little further to the side and brought out a fresh pack of paper napkins. He placed the hot-dog into one of those napkins and passed it on to the customer.

  Sara pushed through the crowd and around the corner to where she could see the ECSIS building arrogantly declaring its presence in huge letters. The building stood there proud and erect but unaware of the shadowy foundations underneath that dealt with the things it couldn't handle. Foundations that supported it out of sight and allowed it to continue to stand tall in the face of all the things which threatened to tear it down in a display of force or would just as soon subtly gnaw away and erode it slyly so that it crumbled before it even knew what had happened to it.

  Letting the tide of the afternoon crowd carry her past the ECSIS building she maneuvered herself out of the throng upon arriving at the law firm cover used by the specialist ECSIS division. If the women behind the grandiose desk that made up the reception for the firm hadn't been specifically picked by the division for this job they would have thought Sara and many other operatives were permanently in trouble with the law or getting divorced or something. The polished marble flooring that spread all the way from the wide double doors and etched windows on the front face of the building back up to the substantial mahogany desk and the bronze edged elevators reflected an upside down version of herself. The lights hanging from the high ceiling were reflected like stars in a deep pool.

  Sara moved to the far left hand elevator and waited until it was empty before she stepped inside. The doors closed waiting for her to enter a floor number. Sara felt down the raised edges on either side of the number panel and found the familiar raised bumps. Performing the motion of pressing those bumps in combined with the half turn clockwise was second nature to her now. She pressed her thumb against the scanner underneath. She barely felt the motion as the elevator started up smoothly taking her down below the law firm’s basement.

  This was the only way Sara knew into the lower portion of the ECSIS building but she was aware enough to know that there were other ways inside that she hadn't been told about. Too many people worked down there for them all to come in through the doors of that law firm. Otherwise things would be a bit of a crush in the elevator first thing in the morning.

  Disembarking she sent the elevator back up and went to the entrance to the division and placed her hands in the scanning trays. With the gel spreading between her fingers and the random needle pricks on her palm Sara had a nagging thought that there was something she should remember, something she should have noticed or be aware of. She didn't try to think about it too hard. Her subconscious would present her with whatever it was in due course and she would kick herself for it. It would probably turn out to be something as obvious as the fact that the man who approached her in the underwear shop was a store employee and just as trivial.

  The gel slipped from her hand leaving it as clean as it had been when she put it in. She was already in motion expecting the entrance to be opening for her. She had to stop herself when she saw that the door had not done so. Rubbing her hands on the thighs of her jeans, the scanners shouldn't be
affected by dirt or grime so the small amount of moisture on her hands shouldn't have been a problem but Sara didn't know what else she could do, she placed her hands back into the scanning trays.

  The gel moved back to surround one hand as the other felt the stings from the needles that would be removing samples of her DNA. She left her hands there for a lot longer than was normally required for her to gain access.

  She blinked her eyes twice and then brought a hand up to her mouth as she tried to stifle a yawn. Her restless sleep hadn't refreshed her fully. She blinked again and brought her thumb and forefinger up to massage the inside corners of her eyes and the bridge of her nose. Her sight became blurred, she closed her eyes and squeezed her thumb and finger together to bring focus back. Another yawn came on and she couldn't stop it.

  Last night had been a long night and she hadn't had much sleep after but she had been awake in one solid block for longer without feeling as tired as she did right now. There was one time when she had to infiltrate a . . . She couldn't quite remember what she had just been about to think. It had been something about . . . She started to try and remember when she realized that was off the point. She shouldn't be reminiscing about the past, not when . . . When what? She had no idea how that thought should end.

  Inky swirls clouded the air around her. The cold floor was gritty under the exposed portion of her back and it wasn't exactly comfortable to be lying there but Sara couldn't motivate herself to try and move. Her head, too heavy to keep held facing the retreating ceiling, lolled to the side so her cheek was pressed onto the grit. Her breath came slower and she sucked in dust from the floor as she inhaled. There wasn't the energy left within her to manage a cough.

  As unconsciousness took her there wasn't even the energy to worry about it.

  Chapter Twelve

  Her body was too heavy to move. She was being held down with weights that kept her wrapped in sleep. Looking up she could glimpse consciousness waiting and knew that she needed to get there. But it was easier not to struggling. Struggling seemed to make the weights weigh more. The only result of her efforts was to pull her deeper down so that the nothingness surrounded her more fully. Consciousness was now fading away to a tiny spot. But that spot could be all that stood between her and survival. When she was unconscious she was defenseless. If she couldn't defend herself she would become a victim. Sara Fox was a fighter not a victim.

  With her mind firmly focused on its goal she slipped her bonds and rose steadily to wakefulness. Her eyes snapped open and she sat bolt upright. Her eyes flicked around her surroundings to identify any immediate threat. She was alone in a small holding cell with a hard shelf for a bed and a bucket and a hole for her waste. She had put plenty of people into cells just like this one and her only surprise came from still being alive to be in one rather than the actual surroundings.

  Sara remained seated on the edge of the shelf but turned sideways to hang her legs over the edge. The first thing was to take stock of herself. She felt a distant nausea and recognized the signs of having been sedated. The last thing she remembered was trying to get into the division but then things went hazy. She had tried the scanners but they hadn't worked, so she tried them again and found herself here.

  Sara rubbed her hands together and then turned over her palms. There was no visible sign of where the needles had broken the skin during the test, there never was, but that must have been when they did this to her. Not only had they got to Ash but somehow they had compromised the division’s security at the deepest level.

  Sara got to her feet slowly and started to walk backwards and forwards. The exercise would help to flush the last of the sedative out of her system and make her more alert when an opportunity for escape presented itself. At least she hadn't suffered any injuries during her transport here and she was still dressed as she had been before she was knocked out.

  These people were obviously very professional, to even know of the existence of her division of ECSIS they had to be good to infiltrate it they had to be excellent. Unless they were a part of the division. Was this an inside job?

  Sara stopped and forced herself to focus, the who and the why could wait for later. For now she had to do all she could and then she had to wait. After a thorough sweep of the cell from one side to the other that revealed no way out nor any surveillance devices or anything else immediately to her advantage Sara admitted there was nothing left to do but wait. She climbed back on the shelf put her hands behind her head and waited for something to happen.

  She didn't bother trying to judge how much time passed, she had no idea how long she had been unconscious so there was no way for her to keep track of what the time of day was. Whenever they came for her they came for her. The fact that they hadn't killed her meant that they wanted her for something. Whatever that was she would be looking for a way to turn it into an escape or a way to bargain for her freedom. But until that time there was nothing she could do.

  Ordinarily in these circumstances she would be asking herself what if, to try and come up with a plan of action for any eventuality, but with no frame of reference it would be extremely difficult. Sara knew herself well enough to know that her best option was to just wait and see and then act on instinct.

  While there was nothing she could do about her immediate situation for the moment she could try and figure out what was going on. She didn't expect to come up with any real answers but anything that would let her narrow down the possibilities would be a help.

  It all tied in somehow to the operation in the statue and what happened afterwards with the security mech and Carla Swift. That was the common starting point for all the weirdness. The alteration of reports to frame Carla, the sudden change of heart of supervisor Ash so much that he denied even having talked to her, the attack on Sara outside her apartment, and her final capture and imprisonment here. All of it started after that operation. Sara replayed all of the briefings and the operation and afterwards over in her head. There was nothing about the mission itself that made it extraordinary. Terrorist cells and groups of so called freedom fighters were cropping up all over the place, taking hostages, blowing stuff up, trying to get noticed.

  If it wasn't the operation that was at the centre of all this then it must be Carla Swift. Sara didn't know enough about the woman to be able to build up a hypothesis of who might be after her or why. It was conceivable that Carla was being investigated by an official agency. Sara could have been targeted because of her investigations. That would explain who the reports could be altered and how Ash could be convinced to act as though Sara had never explained her concerns to him. But it didn't explain why Sara was here, or why Ash wouldn't have explained to her that she should stop her search because it infringed on another operation.

  Sara was just starting to wonder whether the fact that a leading doctor in his field had been isolated and killed by the CDM could have any bearing on the events that occurred subsequently. Grosset had been separated and questioned by the CDM.

  Sara furrowed her brow. Had it been the CDM who were questioning the doctor? The man who had been with him wasn't dressed like the rest of the terrorists, not like a terrorist at all. Was this all related to him? Had Carla Swift and Sara herself become involved accidentally. That made a certain amount of sense but without further information Sara couldn't come up with one theory that was any more likely than the others.

  She was back at square one. There was absolutely nothing else she could do until her captors made their next move. But when they did so she had to be ready. The moment even a slim chance for escape presented itself she had to be ready to take it. She had to seize any opportunity because she couldn't count on getting another one. Well, when they came she would be ready for them.

  The bucket was still under the shelf where she had found it but now Sara retrieved it and put it on the shelf and sat next to it. She hadn't seen any surveillance equipment but that didn't mean there wasn't any. To make the process seem more natural she made it look as thou
gh she thought she was going to throw up. Hanging her head over the bucket she closed her eyes and took a few slow deep breaths, moaning every so often in case there were auditory pickups as well as visual cameras.

  Her work in the special division of ECSIS had taught her to be patient. On any one operation the general pattern of work could be broken down into two main stages. First were the long periods of boredom and inactivity. Planning, preparation, running through the scenario a hundred times in your head trying to come up with a plan for every possibility. Then came the active phase which could itself be broken into two parts, the on the ground preparation and the final confrontation. The on the ground preparation had to be just as painstaking and meticulous as the true planning. It involved performing a full reconnoiter of the target area and moving into the position for the final assault. Sometimes getting into the correct position could take several hours of painfully slow movement. Most of the time the actual confrontation lasted only minutes. One of Sara's instructors had nailed it best. He said that an operation was 'Ninety-nine percent boredom punctuated by short bursts of chaos and confusion.' That was spot on.

  So Sara had no problem with waiting for them to come to her. She had done almost all that she could to prepare herself. She used whatever time was left to formulate her plan of attack depending on who came for her, how many they were, and how they were armed. She couldn't hope to hit upon how it would happen exactly but if she had even a general plan it would make her reactions just that little bit faster.

  ***************

  This time there wasn't any pain. There wasn't any anything. There was no light. No sound. No feeling of warmth or cold. No smells. No gravity. It was as though her mind had been taken out of her body and transported out into space after a blanket had been thrown over the stars.

  The stars. She knew about them from her classes but she had never seen them with her own eyes. She learned a great many things in the classes. Where she was sat bound to a rigid chair and forced to learn information that scrolled along in front of her eyes, transmitted along the same equipment that monitored her brain activity. She didn't have a teacher, nor did they ever test that she had learned the information. They just presented it to her again and again until she had it memorized.