by Gary Starta
He began scanning the coast for a building matching the image in a photograph. A tan, towering building, proudly displaying the company logo – a microscope contained within the orb of a blue eyeball.
“Ooh…there…there she is.” The illumination of the moon allowed its detection. Burnham took this as another sign that destroying this company, its ideology, its claim to Intellectual Properties was necessitated. A beacon shows me the way… Burnham prayed to his God one last time.
As if in response, an array of images, past memories flooded his consciousness. His ex-wife, his indifferent mother were soon superseded by more pleasant memories of his dad, the specific day he met David Finch, how they unsuccessfully tried to lure Plump-kin away from the food bowl with string, hugging Mrs. Finch the day he left for the academy. Finally, Lorelei leaning over him the day they met with the promise of intrigue and romance all wrapped into one delicious sensation…
The building rocked. An air current trapped his copter in its wake. The sonic boom of exploding glass was but an echo in his mind compared to the falling sensation, his stomach seemed to drop out of his body. The ensuing head rush, blood flowing away from his brain, made the flames seem so surreal, the manner in which they licked along the remaining glass windows of the tower. He was so near the building, yet so far, because he was no in shape to maneuver the copter into a ramming position, in turn, the copter was no match to resist the black hole of destruction baiting it. He felt as if the structure was indeed the devil incarnate, engaged in a last-ditch effort to keep its integrity - its perverted Intellectual Properties in place. All for the good of humanity - it cried with each groaning, compromised squeal of its bending frame. All for the sake of healing – it lied. All for the purpose of dampening humanity’s ability to resist its charms – it finally admitted as smoke wafted towards the copter.
***
She was on top of him, metal springs groaned in unison with the bucking, swaying and grinding.
Relentless, Finch surrendered to her beat.
Eyes closed, it came as in a dream. Tiny sharp daggers sank into his neck, blood spurted, warm and euphoric, dribbling down his chest. Something akin to strobe lighting blinded his sight before darkness blanketed him in frost.
***
Reactions varied among those in the know and those on the peripheral edge of knowing.
Graystone Medical employee Tommy Chu danced as if he were a discotheque butterfly. Perhaps no man ever so happy to witness the demolition of his workplace. - the severing of an evil umbilical cord which he believed had been wrapped around his very soul, damning him to follow the wishes of his superiors. He never wanted to carry out their plan, yet they would have infected millions, even if he hadn’t corrected the L2 – even if he hadn’t filtered out its nasty compulsion to crave flesh and blood. He had lost hope of Brinkhaus returning. He had accepted defeat because he couldn’t come to terms with sacrificing his life for morality. But he wondered who those people were in the plane and the helicopter. They had the courage to defy at the cost of their existence. Then Tommy Chu reasoned they weren’t just people – they couldn’t be – they were evolved, they were possibly test case reanimates with a grudge to bear.
A glass table shattered, its crash drowning the sing song voice of an announcer who reported no one other than the pilots were killed in the destruction of Pharmacies home headquarters.
CEO Alan Eichelbaum watched his hands bleed in disbelief. He was indifferent to the blood loss. He would have gladly given pints if it kept him at the reigns of the pharmaceutical giant. He was appalled at how he had listened to Pharmacure President Frederick Gaines whine about the bugs in L2. So it would make the victims hungry. He was sure the pills would have curbed it. The best scientists in the world had designed Luxate. The men and women at Grayson Medical could have tweaked it if necessary. Bottom line: the American populace would have been hooked on the drug by now if he hadn’t waited for Bronchus’s return. And if they ate each other, so what, as long as they were eating their other addiction – the little blue pills – Eichelbaum could give a rat’s ass.
Eichelbaum kicked over the abstract composite that was once a coffee table in final defiance. “It was ours for the taking! We could have made history!”
He fell to his knees, shards of broken glass cutting him but he remained oblivious. He clasped his hands together as in prayer. He asked his God, the God that seemingly always fulfilled his narcissistic wishes, to defy reality. To allow one vial of the disease to remain intact for the sole purpose of exacting revenge on the American populace because he reasoned whoever flew those aircraft into his glass kingdom was a deviant, opposed to the laying of a golden road he would have rode to his own personal American dream. Those traitorous bastards, he thought, never once considering he was the deviant. And after a long moment, he wondered if Karl Brinkhaus might have been one of those pilots. But he concluded he would never know. The building like the aircraft had been too damaged. And so he launched a shard of broken glass into his chest, mourning the loss of L2 and his own personal American dream for as long as his mortally wounded existence would allow him.
Former ME Hector Gonzalez wore a perverse grin.
So, no one other than the pilots died in the cause. That’s remarkable and also very calculated. Someone with a conscience did this. The one man whose integrity he had never questioned flashed before his eyes.
Could it have been you? Officer Burnham, were you really out there all this time…?
Although light blinded his eyes, David Finch could see still his reality. Lorelei had granted his wish. But he realized his new existence was only an alteration, he still recalled past memories, past feelings until a voice talked to him.
He attempted to answer in thought.
My brother, I thought I lost you…
Chapter 34
The deputy director peered down upon the trauma victim. As one of the top bananas of Central Intelligence, Kevin Jenkins ironically knew little about the bandaged man in the hospital bed.
He surmised the man had waged a war against a corporation – a David against a Goliath in comparison – and somehow managed to emerge victorious. Except for external damage, the man in the bed remained vital – rest would most likely cure him. The „how" intrigued the deputy director. Maybe the man’s motivation was his condition. How else could he have survived? True, a freak turn of fortune forced his copter to remain intact during the building’s implosion – but most men might have incinerated or have at least succumbed to smoke inhalation. The aluminum body of the aircraft singed black by fire; the body of the man inside it suffering only first degree burns by comparison.
He also surmised the man was attempting to prevent the corporation from manufacturing more of his kind. The murder of a crime lord in Miami days and the destruction of another helicopter at the scene had seemed to defy explanation – until now. The deputy director was sure the events were somehow connected. Maybe this man sought vengeance against other makers of his kind. And quite possibly all this tied into the bizarre death of Congressman Katz and a cover up by Tampa PD regarding two murdered officers…but the question nagged at him, what if Medical Examiner Gonzalez was correct? He had told the FBI one of the officers survived his attack ultimately returning to life. Jenkins learned this through eavesdropping as no FBI employee ever divulged Gonzalez’s outlandish theories. This made him wonder why the Bureau never followed up on Gonzalez’s claims. The claim that it was out of their jurisdiction was only as a matter of semantics. If the Bureau wanted to dig, they had a Tampa field office at their disposal. So, was Bureau personnel paid to bury this? Jenkins had to believe CDC officials had been bribed. Quite possibly, the Secret Service agent who magically appeared at the hotel crime scene in Washington was dirty. Investigations into these betrayals would be pending. But right now, Jenkins wanted to meet the man he believed to be the second coming of Tampa PD officer Derek Burnham.
A few questions… Did this bureaucrat seriously believe a few questions would daunt him after the peril he faced?
How can I be alive? Brinkhaus said I was immortal, not indestructible…
As if he were tuned into Burnham’s brainwaves, Jenkins attempted to answer.
“It was the craziest ass thing I ever saw. Your copter latched onto a beam – one of the few beams to remain structurally sound – and hung like a potted plant just above a roaring inferno. Seems your propeller blades forked around the beam as your copter made a nose dive, but investigators surmise, your craft tipped sideways in response to air currents, the twisting motion bent the blades in the most desirable manner to keep the craft suspended.”
Burnham wondered in silence. Was God watching over me? Then, he recalled Sanchez. He scanned the adjacent bed. Empty. No. Sanchez couldn’t have made it. But maybe God granted Sanchez his wish, to die…
“They had a helluva time rescuing you. Another copter had to tractor beam you out of there. It got dicey for a few moments. Each time they yanked on your craft, it tipped. Truthfully, I thought you were going to be expelled like a salmon from a tin can. But alas…here you are…”
“What do you want from me?”
“Ah. Yes. That confirms it. You’ve got to be Derek Burnham. The vice cop… I’ve got to say, you refined the meaning of reinventing yourself.”
“And you are…”
“Deputy Director Jenkins, CIA. I’m not here to interrogate you, son. I’m here to enlist you – if you cooperate.”
“What would that entail?”
“For starters, you can’t be Derek Burnham anymore. The public believes Derek Burnham was killed by an unknown assailant in Tampa. You’re going to need some facial reconstruction anyway as a result of your burns. So, in time, we’ll create a new identity for you, we’ll give you a new name, one which sounds phonetically like your current name, only different.”
“All this - at no charge…? How can the agency afford it? Oh, wait. It’s going to be on the taxpayer’s dime.”
“Hey, don’t knock it. Taxpayers used to pay your salary. And look at you, you’re changed – superior. It only stands to reason your identity should change as well.”
“Kind of like I’m some sort of God?”
“Okay, be sarcastic. For what you’ve been through, you’re excused. I even welcome doubt in my agents. They need to be suspicious. Untrusting…That’s why I’ll think you’ll be a great addition.”
“For starters, Mr. CIA, I’m no God. I think I’m more like a lab rat. Especially, lying here in this bed, at your mercy… But I have to ask myself. Am I really at your mercy? What if I don’t want to cooperate, refuse to be your supernatural spook?”
“I might be able press some charges. Some crimes against of treason come to mind. You attacked a building on American soil. You might have even murdered a sociopath crime lord in Miami. Off the record, the world won’t shed a tear for Amado James. On the record, I never said such a thing. You get how this works.”
“Yes sir, I do. You say jump, and I ask how high?
“Yes, something to that effect, Mr. Burnham.
“Okay, I’ll enlist…as soon as my brain stops screaming…”
“You’re making a wise choice. I see your cop nature in your design. Even your condition can’t change that. I hope one day we might be able to quantify whatever you contracted. And I think that one of your first missions should be reconnaissance. I’d just love to find the whereabouts of that mad scientist you were chasing. I’m betting he’s on some remote island, rewiring more test subjects. But your superior makeup supernaturally allows you to be a better judge.”
Damn, what else does this snoop know? Then, another voice in his head interrupted him.
“Can you excuse me, deputy director? I need to take this call.” He pointed to his temple.
Jenkins shook his head, finding no phone about Burnham’s person. After a long pause, he smiled. “Sure, thing Agent. I can only encourage you to answer your calling.”
***
Are you really there, Mate?” Finch asked.
His friend answered, affirmatively.
Finch turned to Lorelei, misty eyed, hysterical with laughter.
“Love, Burnham made it. He’s alive…and he’s being recruited…”
“W.T.F.?” Lorelei wondered aloud.
***
“This makes perfect sense, we’ve got to join him,” Finch argued. He drained the last sip of tea from his cup.
Lorelei grabbed it away from him. “No more for you, buster – I think there’s something more than tea in that cup.”
“I heard him plain as day. He’s alive. He’s gained telepathy that’s all. Fortunately, my reanimation gave me the same gift as well.”
“But I didn’t hear him,” she complained.
“That’s because your ability became damaged from those damned pills.”
“Okay, so if he’s alive. I’m really happy for him. But we’ve got a life here…now…”
“We can still have it. So, what if we pop off to other countries once in a while for a secret mission? Lyla will be most happy to babysit. In fact, I already asked her.”
“You didn’t, Finch! I can’t leave my baby, not after what happened.”
“It won’t be like before. You’ll be coming back. Besides, you have a calling and you’ve got to answer it.”
“Well, my phone must be disconnected because I’m not hearing your calling.”
“The calling is – simply put – our abilities. We were designed to be spies. We can’t use our gifts openly in public. Not when we have exclusive rights.”
“I think you just want to see your buddy, Burnham again.”
“Well,” Finch paused to bite a muffin, “I suppose that’s true, too.”
Lorelei circled the table until she was behind him. He raised a hand in solidarity.
“Okay, then. You show me where to sign up for this new life.”
“Convinced you that quick?” Finch asked. Her hand played spider along his outstretched palm. The still unnamed orange cat pounced on the table and purred, possibly pleased with their plans.
“Not really,” Lorelei admitted. She paused to smile, her eyes distant, recalling a few of their past engagements. “It’s just that I’ll always have your back, David Finch. Always...” She bent over to fully submerse him in her arms.
Finch basked in the warmth of Lorelei’s hug. “…and forever, my love.”