"We did well tonight. Looking at her belly I reckon this one is at just about ripe enough for what we need."
There was no friend's house. Instead, the van pulled up at the rear entrance of a cancer research facility which was, in reality, a front for Illuminati experimentation. A laboratory assistant, wearing a freshly ironed white coat, creases so sharp that you could cut your finger on them, was waiting with a wheelchair, not for any compassionate reason but simply to expedite the journey from the loading bay to Lab A1. The girl was wheeled into a side-room where an ultrasound scan of her belly was hastily done. Tonight's catch was particularly good. She was at exactly the right stage of her pregnancy, meaning that they wouldn't have to waste time and resources feeding and housing her. The extraction could take place immediately.
Arriving outside Lab A1, the girl was told to get out of the wheelchair, go inside the room, strip off all her clothes and lay down on the operating table. She did this with no hint of embarrassment, for she was still heavily under the influence of the scopolamine dust that had been blown into her face forty minutes earlier.
The laboratory was sparsely furnished. The operating table was more like an autopsy table, cold and metallic to the touch, perforated with dozens of 1cm holes so that any blood or superfluous bodily fluids could drain into the waste reservoir situated underneath. Other than the operating table the only other piece of equipment was what appeared to be a baby incubator connected by a small airlock to a second incubator which was much larger than the first. There were many wires and tubes attached to the apparatus, most of which were to monitor the vital signs of the inhabitants of the contraption. The girl could see the unusual medical equipment, and was mildly curious, but the hold of the scopolamine on her mind was too strong and she made no effort to inquire about her predicament.
As she lay on her back, naked and prone, her slightly swollen belly glistening with sweat under the heat of the lights, a lab technician passed a scalpel to the surgeon before walking over to the larger of the two incubators.
Inside this incubator lay a naked man.
Ray Greenway had terminal congenital heart failure and had volunteered for this experiment; he had nothing to lose. He hadn’t been told that he wasn’t expected to survive the experiment and was under the impression that this had been done before. He thought that his soul would be transferred to the foetus and he would be born to this girl and the two of them would be cared for and would want for nothing. He was very relaxed and was idly remembering the best parts of his previous lives.
The scientists had performed a lot of research on the human brain and had succeeded in identifying where the soul resided. That was actually the easy part. The more difficult challenge was to find a way to extract the soul and place it into another body.
The plan that day was to insert the soul of a recently deceased adult into a baby. Many attempts had been made so far and none had met with success but Professor Georgiy Ivanov had come up with a radical new theory and that was what they were about to test now.
A lab technician stood by the large incubator waiting for a signal from Professor Ivanov who, in turn, was standing by the girl’s autopsy table. He nodded to the lab technician who pressed a button on the control panel of Ray Greenway’s transparent chamber and Ray began to splutter as the air was sucked out of the incubator.
Simultaneously Professor Ivanov pressed his scalpel into the flesh of the naked girl’s belly, slicing through her smooth skin and opening up the wall of her womb. This time she did react and cried out with a mixture of pain and terror as Professor Ivanov slid his hand nonchalantly inside her womb and withdrew her baby.
Meanwhile Ray had lost conscious as the oxygen in his incubator had been replaced with a vacuum. His skin had started to swell and turn blue as he began to suffocate from within. His natural instinct had been to take large gulps of air but there was none, and so his lungs had burst. If he had been conscious he would have felt his blood starting to boil.
The technician looked at the small video monitors in front of him.
“Professor, I’m picking up activity in the alma region of the brain. It looks like the adult’s soul will be leaving the body imminently.”
The professor had separated the new-born baby’s umbilical cord from its mother but had made no attempt to clean the infant. He had clamped the cord, but only at the end where it was attached to the baby. It was important that the baby should not die yet. He was completely unconcerned with the health of the mother. In fact, once the baby had been removed from her belly he used his scalpel to cut her throat. He couldn’t abide the awful sobbing noise she was making.
The baby was placed into the smaller incubator and the lid closed. Ray Greenway was almost dead and the signals from his soul were becoming stronger. As he breathed his last, an airlock door was opened providing a small additional chamber for the soul to enter.
“Professor, the soul appears to have left the body.”
The soul had indeed left the dead body of Ray Greenway, having forced its way through the pores of his blue-tinted skin, and was looking for a new host. Sensors in the incubator showed that it was moving around the transparent coffin although nobody could see it. The scientists were only aware of its presence due to the unusual electrical activity that was being detected at various points in the incubator.
“Professor, it’s in the airlock.”
The technician pressed another button and the airlock door quickly closed behind it, as air was pumped into the small tube that linked the two incubators.
Over by the autopsy table, two men in red overalls dragged the girl off the table and tossed her lifeless body into a plastic lined trolley before wheeling her out of the room. Her soul had left her body and was now free, seeking a suitable new host. When it couldn’t find one in the laboratory it would disappear into the atmosphere to widen its search.
A few seconds later, Ray Greenway’s soul was free from its transparent prison. It had been released from the airlock into the small incubator where it found a new host waiting patiently for its new consciousness to arrive. The soul passed through the baby’s pores with ease and settled inside the recently discovered alma region of the brain of its new body.
Professor Ivanov looked anxiously at the technician
“Well?”
.“We’ve done it sir. We’ve done it. The baby has a soul. We just transferred a soul into a new body of our choosing.”
The professor should have been elated. He should have been cheering or doing a jig or something. He had done something no human had ever done before him; he had taken a dead man’s soul and placed it into another body – a body that he had chosen. Instead, he remained remarkably calm. He turned to two lab orderlies.
“You, Jones, dispose of whatever his name was.”
Jones identified the body.
“Greenway, sir.”
“Yes, Greenway. You, Wolzenik or whatever your name is, you can dispose of the baby. I have to go and report to the Pindar.”
Whilst the professor headed towards Thomas McCall’s office, Jones pushed the trolley containing its macabre cargo down the corridor to the incinerator room. He opened the doors of the incinerator room and gave the trolley a shove, letting it freewheel inside, where it rolled to a halt next to the body of the young girl.
The doors flew open and Wolzenik hurried in. Jones nodded at the trolley and then looked at Wolzenik.
“I hope you put the baby out of its misery properly.”
“Course I did. I grew up on a farm.”
Chapter 19
9 a.m. Wednesday, 8th November, 2051
Maurice was feeling quite settled now. He’d been with the resistance for about eight months and he felt safe. He was working, doing something that he was good at – accounting – and he was actually feeling fitter thanks to the compulsory physical training he undertook four days a week. It was a new experience for him, he’d never been one for working out, and if he’d had a choice he’d still
have found an excuse to avoid it. In the beginning muscles ached that he didn’t even know he had, but now he had become accustomed to the regime and was actually feeling the benefit. He would certainly never be a contender for Mr. Universe, but he felt healthier than he had for a long time.
There was a knock on the door of his room.
“Maurice?”
“Just a minute, Tony.”
Maurice stopped preening himself in the full length mirror that was attached to the inside of the wardrobe door.
“Hurry up, Maurice. The boss wants to see us – now!”
Maurice wondered why the boss wanted to see him. He put on a pair of jeans, a T-shirt celebrating the nearly completed Crazy Horse Memorial in North Dakota, USA, and a pair of trainers, before trotting downstairs to the study where he found Roberto logging onto the computer. He waited a couple of seconds and then took a seat as the silhouetted figure of the Businessman came to life on the screen. The silhouette spoke, the transmission protected by the same signal camouflage technology that Maurice had had installed at his own house. For a moment his mind had started to drift off towards his wife and children but the voice of the Businessman wrenched him back to reality.
“Roberto, Antonio, Miguel, Maurice… good morning. I hope you are all well.”
The four responded in a disorderly fashion that they were.
“Gentlemen, let’s get right to the point. I have been reliably informed by two trustworthy SIMPs that The Order has succeeded in transplanting a soul from a dead human into a live baby. I know that it’s hard to believe but my sources are extremely reliable. The bad news is that one of these sources is believed to have been compromised – you don’t need to know the details, just take my word for it. I need you to go to a small town, New Milton, just outside Bournemouth. I want you to meet one the SIMPs, a man called Wolzenik. He’ll have with him a new-born baby. I want you to extract the pair of them and take them to Bournemouth Airport where a plane with full medical facilities will collect them and take them to a safe hospital. Be aware that the baby is premature, but Wolzenik is taking all measures possible to keep the baby alive and comfortable.”
Tony cut in,
“Are we expecting any resistance?”
“Hopefully not but, although Wolzenik has been keeping as low a profile as possible, we believe that he may be being watched. Maurice, I want you to go along as well.”
“Me? But I’m just an accountant.”
“Yes Maurice, you’re an accountant. But I want an extra pair of eyes on this one. Don’t worry, I’m not going to send you in to take part in the actual extraction. We all know what happened last time you got involved in something other than number-crunching. You’d probably shoot the baby or something. All you have to do is to look out for the boys and warn them if anyone unexpected arrives on the scene.”
Maurice breathed an audible sigh of relief, although he was a little hurt by the inference that he would mess things up again. The Businessman continued.
“OK. We’ll do it after dark. I’ll contact Wolzenik and tell him to expect you around 8pm.”
The image disappeared and the three brothers all looked at Maurice. Roberto was the first to speak.
“Well, Maurie boy… looks like you’re going to see some action.”
“The Businessman said I was just there to watch.”
“Well, technically, yes. But if you need to get involved… well… you might have to get a bit physical. Still, now you know why we’ve been making you work out so much.”
Maurice hoped that he would be able to get through the night without getting too involved. He certainly didn’t want a repetition of the cock-up at the footballer’s house. If they gave him a pulse-gun tonight he’d make damned sure it was set to stun. He’d already killed one more human than he had ever wanted to kill.
Whilst the rest of the group spent the rest of their day prepping themselves for that night’s mission, Maurice decided to occupy his time with some light reading. He had several e-books on his tablet and wished he could download some more. However, Miguel had removed the components that allowed internet and Wi-Fi access to all but essential services. Maurice complained but all Miguel did was shrug his shoulders and give a wry smile. Maurice understood why his brothers had given him the nickname ‘Silent Bob’. No matter how much Maurice tried to get an answer from him all he ever received was the shrug of the shoulders and the grin; it was left to Tony to put Maurice out of his misery.
“Security.”
“Thank you Tony. Why couldn’t he tell me that himself?”
“Probably didn’t want to…”
Maurice read for a couple of hours, and after lunch took a nap for another couple of hours. He wanted to be fresh and alert for his lookout duties later on. A loud knocking on his door woke him up.
“Come on sleepyhead. Departure in sixty.”
“Sixty?”
“Sixty minutes. One hour. Three thousand six hundred seconds. You’ve got one hour to get ready.”
Maurice took a shower to wake himself up properly. He left the shower cubicle, wrapped a towel around his waist and trotted back to his bedroom where he found a black jumpsuit and what looked like a chainmail ski-mask, laying on his bed.
“What’s this?” he called out.
“It’s your kit for tonight.”
“This ski-mask looks a bit heavy!”
“Pick it up…”
Maurice picked up the mask and was astonished how deceptively light it was. Its weight hardly registered as he draped it over his hand. Roberto laughed.
“New issue. Very flexible, very light. Try it on…”
Maurice held the mask in both hands and pulled it over his head. It was really very comfortable. Roberto, Tony and Miguel came into the room. They didn’t want to miss this. Suddenly Maurice yelped and the three brothers collapsed into a giggling heap. The mask had developed a life of its own and was gripping Maurice’s face. It felt like it was trying to suck his face off. Tony managed to stop laughing.
“Don’t worry Maurice. It’s supposed to do that. It means it’s almost impossible for someone to rip your mask off and leave you open to identification.”
“It’s bloody uncomfortable. I feel like I’m suffocating. Plus I must look like I’m wearing a gimp suit. ”
“Yep. You do.”
“It’s really uncomfortable.”
“Everybody feels like that at first. You’ll soon get used to it.”
“How do I get it off?”
“Easy. Just pinch the material at the back of your head between your finger and thumb, and the mask releases its grip. Anyone trying to take your mask off won’t normally be so gentle. It’s a bit like a stinging nettle. Except it’s the opposite really. So it isn’t. If you grasp a nettle tightly it won’t sting you but if you’re gentle with it, it will sting. You do the opposite with this; grasp it tightly it’ll intensify its grip on you. Be gentle – finger and thumb at the right place – and it comes off real easy.”
Maurice followed the instructions that Tony had given him. The mask did indeed just slide off his head back into his hand.
At 7pm the garage door opened and the SUV with its cargo of resistance members pulled out into the road. As the garage door closed, Tony put more weight onto the accelerator pedal and the car powered off into the distance. The journey didn’t take long – not with Tony at the wheel – and just before 8pm the vehicle pulled into the driveway of a rather unremarkable semi-detached house. The three brothers got out of the car and rang the doorbell. Unlike the rescue at the Self Termination Centre this mission would be better served by using discretion and not drawing attention to themselves. The front door opened and the brothers went inside the house. Maurice wondered why they weren’t wearing masks.
Maurice felt uncomfortable. He was alone in the back seat of the car and didn’t know what was going on in the house. What if they needed him? Should he go and knock on the door? Why had they not put their masks on, but insisted
that he should put his on? He decided that he should probably do as he was ordered; he should stay in the car and keep a look out. A knock on the car window startled him.
“’Ere mate, what are you up to? You’re not from around ‘ere.”
Maurice tried to shush him away, much as one might try to shush away an over attentive stray dog.
“Oi! I said, what are you up to?”
Maurice mouthed at the man to go away. The man pulled on the door handle and the back door of the car swung open. Maurice was mortified. He thought that he’d locked the door. Obviously he hadn’t. The man reached inside and grabbed Maurice.
“What are you doing with that mask on? This looks very dodgy this does.”
Maurice tried to push the man out of the car, but the man was surprisingly quick and grabbed the mask.
“Let’s see who you are then, mate!”
Maurice felt secure in the knowledge that the mask would stay glued to his head but was shocked when the man pinched the back of the mask between his finger and thumb and the mask fell away from Maurice’s head, landing on the floor of the car. He lashed out, fist clenched and caught the man squarely on the chin. The man staggered back and collapsed onto the ground in a crumpled heap, just as the brothers and Wolzenik, who was carrying the baby, came out of the front door of the house. They looked silently at the unconscious man laying by the car. Roberto broke the silence.
“You’re a bloody walking disaster aren’t you Maurice? No mask too. Let’s hope he didn’t get a good look at your face.”
“I’m think he probably did. He looked me right in the eye so I punched him.”
“Well, we’ll have to get this dealt with later. Our priority is to get this baby and Wolzenik to that plane, pronto.”
Tony opened the tailgate of the car, and tossed two large bags into the boot area.
“Maurice, get in the back here – we have to make room for our friend here and the baby.”
“In the boot?”
REVELATION: Book One of THE RECARN CHRONICLES Page 13