by Jade Powers
She cooperated with the setup, allowing the puppet master to practice moving her right arm up, moving her right arm down, doing squats, nodding, turning in a circle. It was almost a ritual. Every single time they hooked up Hannah, she had to do the same damn tricks, just like a dog, only she didn’t get treats.
From the woods she heard one of the guards yell, “Sir, we are ready.”
The old man mumbled, “I’m not. Don’t get your panties in a bunch.”
Hannah gave a little laugh. She didn’t know the old guy could actually be funny. Honestly, she had come to believe that the top secret military people didn’t have a personality, unless it was dark and twisted...she’d seen that from them.
He said, “Let’s try something a little more difficult. Have her turn the flashlight on and off.”
Hannah found herself flipping the flashlight on and off. Not knowing what the test would be, she allowed the puppet master to keep control, at least until she knew what they would be testing her for. If she waited for the right moment, the woods at night were a great place to escape.
After an hour of testing, the handler declared that they were ready. He said, “Walk her to the clearing. Make sure she stays under your control once there.”
They walked into the forest, along a small dirt pathway that reminded Hannah of a camping ground. She held a flashlight, but the puppet master controlled her, giving her a feeling of dysphoria.
It was hard not to take back her body, especially when she actually stumbled under the handler’s care because he stumbled, sending her sprawling into the darkness. Her intuition told warned that she couldn’t make a mistake, not a single mis-step on today of all days, because this was the moment when she would escape...or die in the attempt.
Hannah knew. She knew that the plan was to kill her...and Drake.
The phrase ‘fall on your face’ had a brand new meaning for Hannah who couldn’t even use her hands to hold back her fall. Because the handler righted himself, he was still standing, which meant that in that split second that she fell, he hadn’t made the motions that would have allowed her to break her fall.
“Oh, my God. I’m sorry!” In the darkness, the puppet master’s words sounded false.
It was a trick.
They know.
Hannah shivered in the dark, her chin and shoulder throbbing. She forced herself to relax and wait for the handler to turn off the implants. A fallen marionette, the puppeteers refused to release her.
Instead, the puppet master and doctor bodily lifted her to her feet. It was demeaning and embarrassing and a whole litany of other things that enraged Hannah. She felt tears slide down her cheeks and was grateful for the dark. Her hands shook with anger.
They watched and waited...to see if Hannah was the cause of the failures or something else. If they suspected her, they would purposely put her in situations where she would strive to break the connection. Like now.
Once she was back on her feet, the puppet master took over again, this time with more care.
“How many times have you done this?” Hannah asked.
“Done what?” asked the handler.
“Implanted someone and taken them out in the dark,” Hannah said. She and the puppet master were both holding flashlights. For a moment, the puppet master lowered his hand, so hers lowered, too.
“A dozen times,” said the puppet master. Perhaps another lie. This time Hannah wasn’t certain.
In the distance she could see the glare of harsh lights. The effect was like a late fall football game when the sky was dark, but the field bright for play. Standing in the middle of the field, bound and handcuffed was Drake. The moment was surreal.
Two guards stood on either side of Drake, as if even handcuffed and bound he could somehow escape. When the handler pulled out a .40 Beretta and handed it to Hannah, she was scared. She’d felt the weight of the weapon in the dark and immediately broke out in sweat. The puppet master forced her to rack the chamber and thumb the safety.
She knew what was coming next. Her arm was lifting and she was turning...toward Drake! She cried out, “Wait. I don’t want to do this.”
Even while she screamed her rage, her mind went very silent. She noted the position of the guards as they stepped away from Drake. They carried M4 assault rifles. Although Hannah didn’t know the name of the weapon or what they did, she knew without a doubt that she was out-gunned. Their focus was on him, their weapons trained on his body.
She was going to die. She could overcome the puppet master’s hold, but she would never be able to outshoot these men.
“We all do things we don’t want to do,” said the handler. He spoke with pride and excitement. He was getting off on forcing her to shoot Drake.
Hannah focused heavily on the series of numbers, her brain rushing through them as if she were doing a timed test. She gained control of the gun even as she started to pull the trigger.
Falling to her knees and wrenching her arm to the right, Hannah aimed at the guard who stood at attention a long way from the puppet master’s intended target. She pulled the trigger. The gun burst roared in her ears. The man fell. She couldn’t hear a thing after that.
She changed targets and fired again. She fired until the gun was empty, and even then she kept pulling the trigger. The second man fell. He wore body armor. She had no idea if anything got through. She couldn’t hear anything. She didn’t know what was going on. She could only stare at the fallen soldiers.
The moment Hannah turned her weapon away from Drake and shot one of his guards, her own guard shot the puppet master and the handler. Her guard fought from outside the glaring lights, killing the men who targeted Drake or Hannah.
When Hannah’s gun fired nothing the third time, her guard fired in staccato bursts on the man lifting his gun to shoot Hannah. She saw him hit and looked over her shoulder. In the harsh light, she could see blood where the puppet master was sprawled.
They were going to kill her. She scrambled across the ground, keeping low as she moved out of the field of light and into the darkness. Drake dove to the ground as the remaining guards turned their weapons on Hannah, all but one. Her own guard didn’t. She ran half-stumbling toward the dark.
Hannah crawled until she reached the darkness. She put her fingers in her ears and turned to watch from the underbrush. The Beretta was on the ground thirty feet from where she sat. Hannah didn’t remember dropping it. She didn’t remember sitting down either. She felt the brush of wet leaves against her arm. She should be doing something.
The guard she had shot was getting up, reaching for his weapon. He was moving slowly. She must have done some damage, even if it wasn’t fatal. He and Drake’s other guard, who was bleeding from a shot that hit a gap in his armor took cover in the darkness of the forest.
As heinous as her kidnapping had been, Hannah shook in relief at seeing the guards she had shot in motion. She hadn’t killed him. While she watched, her guard shot three more times. She could see his position from muzzle flashes in the dark.
The guards who were in the light took cover running into the woods. Drake fled, still in chains and handcuffs, and making more distance than Hannah could have as he also took cover in the woods.
More muzzle flashes, and Hannah understood that the guard on her side had moved. Hannah shivered in the dark, watching as the lights flashed the positions of the men, as the heavy sounds of gunfire shattered the night.
Hannah forced herself to stand, her heart racing as she slipped into the dark. She tripped over a log and sprawled to her hands, cutting her palm on a sharp rock. Crawling to the nearest tree, she leaned against it. Everyone still alive was in the dark now. She moved along the edge of the light, toward the point where Drake had crawled into the forest. He wasn’t where she expected him to be.
The van.
Hannah recognized her only true escape to freedom. The vehicles were in the opposite direction. Her heart pounded, and Hannah clutched the trunk of the tree, pulling herself to sta
nding.
The flashlight was in the field with the Beretta. Hannah couldn’t risk someone shooting her. Somehow she didn’t think they would leave witnesses once this was all over. If she did something stupid, like go back for a flashlight, she’d be easy to kill.
Her flight through the woods sent her sprawling into brush, crawling through mud, and bruising her body on rocks and stumps. The orientation to the flood lights were her only guide back to the van. They hadn’t parked far.
Hannah’s adrenaline pushed her into hyper-mode as she fled headlong into the woods. It was five minutes later when she realized that they had only walked a short way from the van to the testing site and then on to the clearing. She had overshot the vehicles.
The gunfire had stopped.
Hannah took a deep shuddering breath. Go forward. Go back. No solution seemed the right one. If she took the van, was she stealing government property? If she didn’t, would they find and murder her? How could she find Drake once she had transportation?
Hannah climbed a tree. They were pine and had tons of branches, but they were also full of sap and sticky and prickly. Her hand was bleeding, and she was so cold her whole body shook as she reached branch to branch. Were it not for the full moon, she wouldn’t have been able to see anything.
When she was about halfway up, she realized that she could see the floodlights from the meadow. They were blocked by a few trees, but the ambient light was there. She could also see the road, and the motion of a flashlight in the distance. The gun fight was either over or delayed. As she missed the outcome, Hannah had no idea which guards were alive or dead and how many survived.
Slowly, methodically, Hannah climbed back down. She headed in the direction of the road.
Now that the shock of the past fifteen minutes had worn off, Hannah had plenty of time to think about what would happen when she was recaptured. The soldiers would have called the base by now. Someone would be on the way. They had all kinds of night goggles and advanced technology. All of those thoughts tumbled through Hannah’s mind.
She had to get a vehicle or get to Drake. Somehow she thought that he would go for a vehicle first as well. That or focus on taking down his enemy. Hannah paused when the tree line stopped at the road. In the dark foliage no one could see her. Once she stepped out on that road, anyone looking would be able to sight her.
Hannah edged the road for a fourth of a mile and found the van that way. She crept through the tree line, looking for signs that the guards had returned to the van. They could be lying in wait, ready to shoot anyone who approached from the forest.
Waiting wasn’t an option. Hannah left the safety of the trees, running toward the van with tight shoulders and fear hollowing out her stomach. She found shelter at the driver’s door. She carefully opened the door.
Her hands shook so hard she could barely crawl into the van. “Get yourself together. Where are the keys?”
Hannah found a flashlight in the glove box. She carried it with her while she searched the van. Thinking of the flashlight she had seen from the tree, she didn’t dare turn it on. For several long minutes, she searched the van.
Finally, she decided she had to risk it. She flipped on the flashlight and started a hunt for keys or weapons or anything that would help her get out of the mess she was in.
Somehow she thought if she crawled along the van floor—gross—that she would avoid detection. It didn’t quite work that way. While she was rummaging through someone’s pack, she heard a deep voice ask, “Who’s in there?”
The voice was unrecognizable in the dark. Hannah would have liked to think that she would recognize Drake’s voice. She didn’t think it was Drake. Hannah took a shuddering breath.
“Hannah.” The word came out a whisper.
She said it louder, “I’m Hannah.”
Chapter 7
HANNAH LIFTED BOTH of her hands over her head and said, “I’m here. It’s Hannah. I’m in the van, looking for keys.”
The van door slid open, and the guard she had shot grunted, holding one hand over his chest. Seeing him Hannah felt guilty and frightened and confused. She started crying and hyperventilating at once, “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to shoot you.”
He lifted a foot but couldn’t quite reach. Hannah reached out to help him and then stopped when he shook his head. He tried a second and third time, his face twisted into a grimace. He took a pained breath, “Do you think you could help me up that step.”
Hannah said, “I’ll come around and you can lean on me.” She didn’t trust herself to say anything more. Why wasn’t this guy trying to kill her? He had watched her shoot him until her magazine was empty.
With awkward self-consciousness, Hannah helped carry, lift, push and steady the guard into the van. She said, “Why didn’t you shoot me? I mean when you saw me here. I shot you.”
The guard said, “I know how this mind control stuff works. It wasn’t really you. I’m just glad Emilio figured out what was going on before it was too late. I saw how shaken you were at the end.
Yeah, because it was really me that shot you. Hannah thought, but she couldn’t say it aloud. Not when he thought she was the helpless scapegoat. Instead she said, “I don’t want to go back to the base. I know you need help, but I am a prisoner there. They’re going to kill me just like those other two. Is there any way we can call for help and I just run into the woods?”
“I have my orders, Ma’am.” He leaned forward to grab the pack and groaned.
Hannah said, “Are you okay? Tell me how to help.”
A little voice inside her head said, Right Hannah. This is how Stockholm Syndrome starts. This is how people like you get murdered while serial killers roam the streets. You should bash him across the head with the flashlight.
If she were a crueler, colder person, Hannah would have committed murder to escape. As Hannah’s life wasn’t in immediate danger, she ignored her own sarcastic commentary and waited for this guy to tell her how to help.
“Gordon said he needed the keys to get one of his computers out of the van. I had already locked it up. I gave him the keys. We need to get them.” The guard’s pained expression and the way he held his arm against his side meant that he wasn’t going anywhere.
“Who’s Gordon?” Hannah asked.
“You’ve been working with them every day and don’t know their names?” the guard asked.
Hannah cleared her throat. In a small voice she said, “To be honest, I don’t think they wanted to know who I was. They didn’t talk much and treated me like a piece of furniture.”
“Sometimes people in a special unit learn not to get too close to anyone outside,” the guard said carefully.
Hannah read between the lines, but she had no qualms speaking it aloud, “Because you kill people like me when you’re done with us?” This was as close as she was going to get to the truth. She needed all the facts before she decided what to do next.
The guard didn’t answer. He said, “I think those shots broke a few ribs. They’ve gotten pretty good with their interface. Be interesting when this thing goes live.”
“I hope it never does,” Hannah said. “You have no idea how it feels to be forced to do something. I was completely conscious and had no control. It was like I was a guest in my own body.” She looked into the dark and realized that she had to go out there again. There were two more guards, and they might not feel the same way about her as this one. She said, “Which one is Gordon?”
“He’s the old guy that ran the show. This was a Charlie Foxtrot from the start. I told him we needed to keep this in the base. I should have known he was working with Drake,” said the guard. He tried to take a deep breath but ended up cutting it short. He was in essence panting.
Hannah said, “I’ll go for the keys. The other two guards are still out there. I think they might kill me.”
“Johnson is dead, but you’d better watch for Emilio. He won’t know who to trust and the woods are dark.”
Hannah stepped out of the van with the flashlight. The moon had hidden behind clouds leaving the forest a lot darker than it had been just a few minutes before. It took her a minute to orient herself to the path. She kept the flashlight off, not wanting to give anyone an easy target. Still, it was nice to have a source of light available.
The flood light suddenly shut off. Hannah couldn’t make it now, not without the flashlight. She covered the light with her palm and turned it on. When nothing happened, she grew a bit braver. She found her way down the path to the field.
When Hannah’s flashlight landed on Gordon’s white lab coat, soaked in red, she froze. He was just a dead body. That was all. She could take the key out of his pocket.
Except. He was dead.
What the hell had happened with her life that she was in a forest alone with two dead people, a psychotic team of soldiers, and a one-night stand?
Get the keys, Hannah.
She moved slowly toward Gordon’s body. The smell of blood and gunpowder was strong in the air. Her first contact was a light touch on the shoulder, almost a poke. He didn’t move. Guys kept their keys in their front jeans pockets or jackets, which meant since he was face down that she would have to roll him over.
He was heavy, so heavy that she could hardly move it. The need for strength forced Hannah to set aside her squeamish fear of the body. Putting down the flashlight she used both hands to roll him over and then picked up the flashlight.
Shining it down on Gordon again, Hannah turned away, gagging. What she had seen, what his body looked like. It was horrific. Years later, Hannah would only remember that at one time she was looking away from his body, clenching her teeth and trying to breathe slowly through her mouth and the next she had the keys. What happened in that moment was that she searched for the keys, her hands touching blood because it had splattered the pockets of his jeans and soaked the pockets of his coat. She found them in the right front pocket of his jeans.