by Jacob Gowans
“Guys, we can all make it out of here alive,” Kaden spoke in a hush, “if we keep our heads cool and work like a team. All Aegis out there . . . this isn’t nearly as bad as Rio.”
“You okay, Antonio?” Kobe asked. “We need you buddy. I’m sorry I got angry. We’re depending on you like you’re depending on us.”
Jeffie put a hand on Antonio and felt him tremble as he took a calming breath. “Y—yeah—yeah. I’ll be o—okay.”
“I’ll go out first,” Li said. “Who wants to come with me?”
Parley volunteered. Together they moved catlike from behind the SUV to a nearby pillar of cement painted with a large N. Beyond that point, Jeffie couldn’t see them through the darkness.
“I’ll go next,” Kobe said. Rosa and Miguel went with him.
After waiting a couple minutes, Levu went with Kawai and Natalia.
Kaden and Jeffie were left with Antonio, and Brickert. “Jeffie,” Kaden said, “you go ahead next with Brickert. I’ll follow you with Antonio.”
Jeffie gave him a thumbs up. “You ready, Brick?”
Brickert was pale, but his eyes were steady. “Born ready,” he croaked. “Lead the way.”
If she hadn’t been so terrified, she might have snickered at his bravado. They walked quickly to the same pillar where Li had hidden a few minutes earlier. They crouched the whole way and stayed low when they reached cover. Levu was still there with Kawai and Natalia. “Let’s go, ladies,” Levu said to her team.
Jeffie and Brickert watched closely so they’d know where to go next. About forty meters away, an Aegis fired four shots. Another Aegis fired two more, but Jeffie was pretty sure they were firing at ghosts. A small whimper came from behind the SUV.
Shut it, Antonio.
The ramp to the second level was almost a hundred and fifty meters away from their side of the garage. Three Aegis stood nearby, guarding it. Jeffie guessed other Aegis were at the stairs and elevators.
“Levu’s moving,” Brickert whispered. “Let’s go.”
Jeffie and Brickert hustled to take the next cover spot. Behind them, Kaden and Antonio filled the vacancy. A couple minutes later, the cycle repeated itself. Jeffie turned to watch Kaden and Antonio move. Not far from the cover spot, Antonio tripped and landed on his stomach. In the darkened silence, it was like a gong.
Guns fired, missing in the dark, but sending bright ricochets off the cement. Antonio cursed and curled up into a fetal position. Kaden reached cover and urged his partner on as quietly as he could. “Get up and shield!” he said. “You’re fine, just shield.” But the Aegis seemed to know where he was now, and one of the bullets hit home. Antonio grabbed his thigh as a bullet ripped into him. His terror-filled scream echoed all around the garage.
Get up, Antonio! GET UP!
Amazingly, he seemed to get a grip and started shielding as boots ran toward him. Kaden seemed torn as to what he should do. Brickert was breathing a steady stream of encouraging words so softly that it sounded like a gas leak.
“Get away!” Antonio shrieked, and threw his arms around as if he were warding off evil spirits. “GET AWAY FROM ME!”
More boots tapped across the floor in his direction. Five Aegis drew near, guns raised.
Antonio was shielding with feet and hands, laying on his back, blood soaking his pants. “I won’t die! You can’t make me die!”
Kaden raised his weapon and took aim.
“No no no no,” Jeffie whispered. “Kaden, don’t give yourself away.”
But it was too late. She could see on his face that he wouldn’t let a fellow Psion die without a fight. He opened fire.
* * * * *
“How did you do that?” Sammy asked. “How did you split up the CAG from the NWG? Did you rig the vote?”
“No.” The fox paused before answering further. Then he captured Sammy’s bishop with a pleasant smile. “Well, actually, I’ve never thought about it that way, but perhaps I did. Think about information, Sammy. Most people associate the word information with truth, if there even is such a thing. In my mind, information can be boiled down to one person’s thoughts communicated to another person. If you can spread out information to several people—millions of people—you can, in a way, control their thoughts.”
Sammy moved his queen and took the fox’s knight. “You controlled the media.”
The fox made a strange face and bobbed his head. Sammy wasn’t sure if the fox was agreeing with him or not. The fox surveyed the board for his next move while pouring himself another glass of water.
“You really should sample this water. Delicious.” He took a sip and smacked his lips. “I don’t like the word you used: controlled. I didn’t control the media. That’s the kind of talk you hear from conspiracy theorists. Wackos.” He raised his eyebrows mirthfully at his own comment. “The people I associate with, we decided that it was in our best interest if America seceded from the NWG. We came up with certain conditions under which this event would occur, and we set about making those conditions a reality. News companies, film companies, holo-vision networks . . . these aren’t some unquantifiable entities, you know. They’re businesses. If you give a business more money than someone else, then they are more likely to listen to you than that other person.
“The NWG was new enough and aloof enough that we knew we could convince the American territories of their need for independence. It only took seven years of very hard work, and we knew our goals were achievable. Rather than trying to shroud our important genetic work from the government and risking sanctions, fines, and other setbacks, we now have full capacity to do whatever we want.”
“You control the CAG?” Sammy didn’t try to mask his skepticism.
The fox took another sip of water as he nodded as casually as if he were agreeing to order a pizza. Then he took one of Sammy’s pawns with a bishop. He seemed deeply satisfied with his move. “You find it hard to believe?” He did not wait for Sammy to answer. “I’m not president. No. I have far more important things to do than that. I merely help influence the policies of the CAG by making sure the people I like or need get elected to such and such offices. It’s much easier when you have a group of people who dedicate themselves to making society better and are uniquely placed to do so.”
“So you got what you wanted. Genetic research. DNA splicing and cloning. So what? What about me?”
The fox looked at Sammy with a puzzled expression. “What about you? Check.”
Sammy’s king was in the way of the fox’s rook. He moved his remaining bishop into position to cover it. “Why did you want to kill me? And now meet me?”
“Aren’t you enjoying the game of chess and the story?” the fox asked, watching Sammy for a reaction. Sammy did not answer, and the fox began to laugh. “I’m only joking. You’ll understand more later. For now, focus on the game. Can we assume for the moment that I run the country or do you want to hear more evidence?”
“I’m playing the game because you promised me answers. What does any of this have to do with me and my parents?”
“Your parents?” the fox repeated. His hand hovered over the board as though he was trying to move all the pieces mentally. Sammy watched him carefully. “Your parents were lucky, I think. Nothing more.”
“Lucky people don’t get killed the way they did.”
“No, that’s true. Please forgive that careless comment.”
“So they are dead,” Sammy said.
The fox took his eyes off the chessboard—an act which seemed to require great effort—and made eye contact with Sammy. “You knew that all along. You didn’t come for your parents. You came for Katie and the man you call Stripe. I could have had any Anomaly Thirteen in that holo-film pointing a gun at a hologram of your parents. I chose Katie and . . . Stripe for specific reasons.”
Sammy closed his eyes and remembered his thought process when the fox had called him at Beta headquarters. I was played like a puppet. “How did you get that information? Their voices? Their manner
isms? How did you—?”
The fox waved his hand as though the question wasn’t worth his time. “Once the CAG was formed to our liking, we formed our own constitution to allow more progressive views on genetics research, but,” he raised his finger dramatically, “to prevent any backlash from the Scourge, we did not change the laws on abortion. At that point, my work was on track.”
“What work?”
“I’m getting to that. Our big breakthrough was finally solving the Scourge vaccine code and figuring out which type of people it affected and why. By doing so, we were able to start cross-referencing our work with the Human Genome Project.”
“So you wanted to accurately predict whether or not a couple’s offspring would have an anomaly based on their genes?”
The fox’s eyes narrowed and a tiny grin slipped onto his face. For an instant, he looked like the most dangerous person Sammy had ever seen. It was the combination of power and intellect shining through his everyman appearance. If this man is really so smart, he must know I’m a trained soldier. How is he so confident that I won’t do something to him right now?
“No. We could never predict an anomaly with that much certainty. There are far too many variables in genetic recombination when couples mate. However, in DNA recombination, in a laboratory. . . . ” He moved his piece. “Check.”
“Clones. You wanted to make clones of anomalies.” Sammy noted that the fox was steadily becoming more aggressive in his tactics on the chessboard. He moved his queen to protect the king.
The fox’s eyes brightened at Sammy’s move. “Sort of. We certainly wanted to combine the cloning process with the research into the anomalies, but the trick was to take it a step further. We soon found that we could duplicate the effects of some of the more basic anomalies. The ones that are far more common: webbed feet and hands, larger craniums, early onset rheumatism—those anomalies that were first discovered. In recent years, as our work has progressed, we’ve found success in creating clones with Anomaly Fourteen, Katie’s anomaly, and my anomaly.”
“Your anomaly?”
“That’s what I said.”
Sammy had no trouble guessing what it was.
“We’ve been collecting anomalies to extract their DNA and study patterns. You experienced one of my extraction facilities in Rio de Janeiro.”
Sammy’s eyes narrowed.
“We don’t kill them, Sammy. We imprison them . . . unless they don’t cooperate with the interrogation process, as you nearly discovered.”
“Why not train your own army of Anomaly Fourteens like the NWG?”
“Because the Thirteens hate them, and the Thirteens are much simpler beings, much easier to control.”
“So you collect anomalies, study them, and clone them. Now you’ve got your own army of clone babies?”
“Not babies. We use accelerated mammalian growth hormone. It’s completely synthetic and speeds up the aging process to prime, but has a very significant side effect of leukemia in one hundred percent of the subjects. That’s why most true cloning labs don’t touch it. But we do, it suits our needs nicely. Check.”
Sammy glanced at the board and made his move. He had no interest in the game, only in watching the fox.
“However, in our anomaly-clones, the accelerated growth process has even stranger side effects. Our clones only live for two to three years. Then. . . . ” The fox whipped his thumb across his throat. “It’s an amazing process. They’re born as infants and need constant feeding. Within eight months, they’re fully grown males—we use only males because we haven’t found a female code sample.”
“Where do you do this work?”
“Here. About thirty floors down and in some other buildings I own. We’ve created lots of spin-off technology that funds the initiative. Like I said, it’s all for the betterment of mankind. It is here that my story reaches its point, I think. We can clone anyone with these anomalies now, but I wanted something better. Eventually our research turned to combining them, but we found ourselves stuck. No matter which combination we tried—Fourteen/Ten, Thirteen/Eleven, Thirteen/Ten, we tried them all—none survived. We went through the genetic codes again and again but nothing seemed to work.”
Sammy waited for the fox to go on, but the fox’s focus turned to the game. They both had only kings and pawns remaining, three apiece. Several minutes passed in silence until Sammy forfeited his last pawn, forcing the fox to take it so Sammy could take his. Stalemate.
“Well played. Shall we start again?” Though this was an invitation, Sammy understood that it was not one he could refuse. After helping him set up the pieces, the fox again gave Sammy the choice of hands to pick. This time Sammy chose gold. “I shall start, it appears.”
The fox was very eager, but Sammy was interested to hear more about his research.
“So why couldn’t you make clones with double anomalies?”
The fox stared at the board much longer before making his first move, then spoke, “What do you know about Anomaly Twelve?”
“It puts those who have it into a coma as soon as their bodies hit puberty and begin producing higher levels of sex hormones.”
The fox nodded and rubbed his earlobe thoughtfully. “Yes, we never considered looking into it because of its . . . dull effects, if you understand. We were mostly interested in creating thirteen/fourteen hybrids to beef up our military. No standing armies. That’s a part of the constitution that we carried over from the NWG. Life is very sacred. Your turn.”
Sammy moved.
“After much futility, we started looking into Anomaly Twelves out of curiosity. I’m proud to say it was my own idea. You know what we found? All Anomaly Twelves are actually double anomalies. They are persons with both Fourteen and Eleven. Not Thirteen, not Fifteen, only Eleven and Fourteen. We have never found any other combination existing in the population. Isn’t that strange?”
Sammy momentarily forgot about the chess match and gave the fox his full attention.
“You see, the combination of those two particular anomalies is too much for the brain. At some point during puberty, the excessive neural excitement overloads the cerebellum and it shuts down. Permanently.”
“But—”
“But what about you?”
Sammy’s throat became dry as he nodded, and the fox’s water bottles started to look very tempting. “Does the NWG know about this?”
The fox’s gaze met Sammy’s. “They do. Their own independent research has brought them to the same conclusion, and they don’t know what to do about it.” Again, Sammy felt the truth in the fox’s words. “Initially, they believed Anomaly Twelve was caused by an autoimmune response to—”
“An extra enzyme created at the neural junction and stimulated by sex hormones.” Sammy had learned all about the different anomalies in his instructions. “But if that were true, they could treat it with an enzyme inhibitor.”
The fox nodded. “So you see the flaw. Good. They perpetuated the myth because it was better than trying to explain to parents that persons with Anomaly Twelve actually suffer from having too much ‘superpower.’ The real truth, Sammy, is that this is the fate of all double anomalies.”
* * * * *
Kaden drew the Aegis to him like pigs to slop. Blasting with one hand, he took down the first Aegis immediately and a second one fell soon after. Somewhere down the way, an Aegis yelled for backup.
“Stay down and shield, Antonio!” Kaden yelled when Antonio moved to get up.
The Aegis dropped back quickly, still firing on Kaden and Antonio. Clearly they had no idea how many Psions were in the garage and decided prudence was a better strategy than an all-out assault. Kaden put down more suppressive fire for Antonio.
“Now! Go now!”
Antonio was slow to move. He used one hand to shield, the other to assist his badly wounded leg.
“You can do it, Antonio! Get back behind cover!”
Antonio turned to dive behind the cement pillar where Kaden had come from
, and in doing so, dropped his shield.
“NO!” Kaden shouted.
It was too late. Bullet after bullet struck Antonio in the back. His last motion was to turn to shield once more, but the bullets kept coming. Jeffie clamped her hand over her mouth and felt her eyes well up with tears. Brickert covered his face with one hand and muttered to himself. Antonio was dead before his body collapsed onto the floor. Kaden dropped back to his cover and looked over at Jeffie. “Go. Go. I’ll draw them off.”
Jeffie would have protested, but Kaden made the decision for her. He left his pillar, shielded his flank, and ran back the way they came to the previous cover spot. Jeffie and Brickert sprinted to their next point, behind a large truck. Levu, Kawai, and Natalia were still there.
“Was that Antonio?” Levu asked.
“Is he—?” Natalia couldn’t bring herself to say the words.
“Antonio died,” Brickert said. “Kaden’s gone back the other direction to pull the Aegis that way.”
On cue, Kaden fired two more shots. The Aegis returned fire in his direction.
“Li’s waiting three cover points down,” Kawai said. “Three dumpsters all in a row. He wants us to regroup with him there.”
“We can make that,” Jeffie said. “Right? We can do that.”
Levu’s group of girls went first. Jeffie let them get two cover points ahead before she and Brickert moved out. Every time they left cover, she saw Antonio being riddled by bullets and struggled to keep her composure.
“I can’t do this, Brick. I can’t go out there!” she moaned right as they were to leave for the dumpsters.
“Do it or die, Jeffie. Those are our choices.” He took off. Jeffie had no choice but to follow.
Li came over to them as soon as they arrived. “What’s going on?” he asked in a hushed tone. “Antonio’s dead? Where’s Kaden?”
“Yes, Antonio’s dead. Kaden ran back. He ran back to draw the Aegis away from us.”