Between Two Minds: Revelation

by D C Wright-Hammer

  Ernesto’s bosses weren’t exempt from his abilities. If their faces conceded a good mood, he’d ask for more jobs. Otherwise, he’d volunteer for more jobs. It was sucking up, but it was on his terms, and it allowed him to operate on his own accord. No one ever assumed he’d deceive them.

  Ernesto couldn’t deny that his gift had betrayed him on a couple occasions. Junior’s mother was a notable exception. Her ability to control her emotions had only been surpassed by her beauty. It had been a turn-on early in their relationship, but as time went on, it would drive Ernesto crazy. He’d look at her, and he knew immediately he was only seeing what she wanted him to see.

  Then, there was Charlie. Ernesto could see that every day Charlie, a hapless veteran with a family and a small bank account, was conflicted about the work. Charlie’s sense of honor and pride would have had him working the line to death. He was a genuinely good guy. But Ernesto had seen signs of something else in the interview. Looking into Charlie’s eyes in the light of the projector, Ernesto could see into his soul. There was a familiar lifelessness he’d seen in so many of his mercenary friends. It confirmed what he’d been told by his contacts at Blue Front. Charlie was special. It was the only reason Charlie had gotten the job, and the gamble had paid off for so long that Ernesto had let his guard down. He’d stop considering the possibility that every day Charlie could be capable of treachery.

  Ernesto shook the regret from his head and tried to read his opponent again. The man’s face was all brail. He saw nothing, interpreted nothing, and had nothing on which to base his play off other than his own cards. It pissed him off, but he knew he had to keep the game moving. He ran the permutations in his head, deciding that he felt strongly enough about his position and hand.

  Ernesto nudged his remaining chips into the middle. “All in.”

  The folded players howled.

  Ernesto stayed calm, waiting for the other players in the hand to make their decisions. The big blind folded along with the other player, and all eyes were on the original raiser.

  A moment went by. “Call.”

  More ruckus ensued.

  Ernesto remained statuesque.

  “Turn ’em over, boys,” declared the dealer.

  Ernesto flipped his hand and peered over at his competition.

  5, 7

  The son of a bitch had been betting on cards he didn’t have, a straight draw and a flush draw. Ernesto was glad that he’d called him on his bullshit.

  Sights turned back to the dealer as he gathered all the chips.

  “Pot’s right.”

  The dealer meticulously burned a card and readied for the river. Ernesto hadn’t blinked in the last minute, and he wasn’t going to start then. Rather, he saw something strange from the dealer—the slightest hesitation and a twitch in his fingers.

  Ernesto watched in slow motion as the dealer extended his hand with a hint of quiver. The flip was fluid but contact with the table was haphazard. Once the dealer slapped the card down, his arm retracted as if he’d touched fire.

  4

  An explosion of cheers and laughter followed while Ernesto sat motionless and silent. He’d known something wasn’t right all along, and the river might as well have confessed the whole setup.

  Ernesto took a deep breath. “All you bastards are in on it!”

  He flipped the table, sending cards, chips, and drinks flying everywhere. Before anyone could attack him, Ernesto had already body slammed the dealer. The winner of the hand dove at Ernesto but was met with a fist to the jaw that sent him stumbling back. Some of the bystanders taunted Ernesto, and he lunged at them. They stepped back, and just before Ernesto completed his paranoid meltdown and seriously hurt the others, a noise from behind him interrupted it all.

  Clap…clap…clap.

  The life drained from the men’s faces as they processed who’d entered the garage. They quickly made themselves scarce.

  Ernesto didn’t need to turn around to know who it was.

  “What’s the matter, Ernesto? Are your eyes deceiving you?”

  Ernesto didn’t respond.

  “Don’t worry. We were very detailed in the implementation of that feature. It won’t affect you on the job. But suffice it to say, you won’t be getting any information from my face, or anyone else’s who works here.”

  Ernesto still refused to look at him. “What do you want from me?”

  Garfield walked around to face Ernesto, his designer shoes clicking against the concrete. “Now that your training is over, we can move on to business. It turns out that we have interest in the same person. A Mr. Charles Rios.” He leaned in with a smirk. “Ring a bell?”

  Ernesto didn’t move.

  “The fool tried to hang himself in his jail cell decades ago. Fortunately, we’d already begun gathering as many hosts as we could, and we stumbled across him. He was resuscitated, and his brain scanned to ensure his mind was still functional. But what we found was very…remarkable, I’m sure you know. The problem was that his condition presented key challenges to the technologies we were using at the time. So, we froze him.”

  “You can’t even contain an ice cube?” Ernesto quipped.

  Garfield sighed. “A terrorist organization calling themselves the Shifter Alliance sent in a small group to hack Gaia…our host and migrator system. They not only thawed and queued up thousands of our pet projects, but they covered their tracks so well that we’re only just now identifying the impacts. We captured most of them the night of the hacking, and they didn’t offer much in the way of information. But the hacker who made the actual changes has eluded us to this day.”

  “Why aren’t we targeting that group?”

  Garfield sneered. “Keep your friends close, but your enemies closer.” Mr. Garfield winked at him. “And the closer I keep them, the more I seem to learn. It would be foolish to throw away such a useful resource. Regardless, we’ll discuss the plans for them momentarily.”

  Since they were on the topic, Ernesto had a burning question. “The kid, Ryan. He’s in Charlie’s body, and somehow, he knows it. What do we know about him?”

  “Ah, yes. Mr. Carter. Another fascinating wrinkle.” Mr. Garfield grinned. “On the surface, he’s just another migrator. But as fate would have it, the woman injured in Mr. Rios’s car crash was, in fact, pregnant with Mr. Carter. He was paralyzed in utero. As such, he’d always wanted to walk. A touching story by all accounts, but it would seem he got a lot more than he bargained for with Mr. Rios’s body. Still, the proximity of their lives makes him all the more important for furthering our research. It’s why I’m glad your plans to migrate into Mr. Rios’s body were thwarted, even if that would have been fascinating in its own right.”

  Ernesto thought it over for a second. “How do I find him?”

  “You won’t have to. He’ll find you. We’ve located Mr. Carter’s mother, and we’re in the process of locating Mr. Rios’s family. We’ll set up a place where a deal can be made, and we’ll bring him in. Let’s not get messy. We need Mr. Carter alive and unharmed. Do you understand?”

  Ernesto understood perfectly, but given the opportunity, he had other plans. “Yes. I’ll persuade him to come willingly.”

  “Great. Now, about our plan for the Alliance. Follow me.”

  Ernesto trailed Garfield from the garage through the training facility.

  “As you can see, Ernesto, the right mind in the right body can push the limits of human abilities. But there appears to be some issue with our procedures when organic hosts are used. It’s produced the most fascinating results that we still don’t fully understand, nor can we tap into yet. Two minds functioning in one brain, being able to shift back and forth. It’s extraordinary to say the least, and these shifters have found a way to harness abilities from both minds. They can switch between the pair of minds to exploit each one’s strengths while minimizing thei
r weaknesses. Simulations show that they’ll probably be too powerful even for our advanced auto-soldiers. We’ve given you our strongest, fastest host, and their best fighters would be able to engage you with relative ease.”

  Ernesto shook his head but said nothing.

  “That being the case,” Garfield continued, “we’re working on a solution.”

  They wandered into the lab area and over to the R&D wing. They stopped at a thick metal door, and Garfield opened a locker next it. He pulled out two pairs of thick, dark lab goggles. “Here. Put this on.”

  Ernesto listened, and Garfield did the same while opening the door. They entered a small room with a sign on the door.

  SEAL OTHER DOOR BEFORE PROCEEDING.

  Ernesto turned around to see the same sign on the other door. They followed the protocol and went inside to find six men in white lab coats facing a shooting range. They held futuristic plastic rifles close to their shoulders while looking down the sights at mannequins with glass eyes some twenty meters away.

  Garfield opened his hands toward the weapons. “We’re putting the finishing touches on the MK-50. It was built on the old retinal scanning technology and modified to exploit those scans’ effects on the brain. It has two main functions—neutralization and termination. The latter is self-explanatory, but it’s the neutralization we’re still perfecting. As it stands today, at the lowest setting, it will simply render your target unconscious. But set to full power, it has the ability to destroy minds.”

  Ernesto scowled. “Whose minds?”

  Garfield nodded. “An average person will be turned into a vegetative state after a microsecond of exposure. Interestingly, when shined into shifters’ eyes, it seems the host mind is afforded some protection. The weapon tends to destroy the migrator’s mind, leaving the host mind relatively intact. This is especially true for host’s who have lost the hue of a pupil, the ones with white eyes.”

  Ernesto instantly realized the implications of such a weapon given his state, but he kept the conversation going. “All of this for some random hacker group?”

  Garfield lifted his head and looked down his nose at Ernesto. “Unlike you, we prepare for all situations, even ones with remote possibility. National intelligence has stated that the potential for an attack on our country is increasing daily. Invading forces from the Free People’s Republic are the main threat. Shifters make up an estimated fifty-two percent of their ranks.”

  Ernesto couldn’t help but smile. “Those rebellious bastards will finally get what’s coming to them.”

  “In due time, we’re counting on it. But first, you’ll secure Mr. Carter, then your next mission will be to disband the Shifter Alliance. The lasers will make that fairly simple.” Garfield led Ernesto out of the shooting range and back into the lab. Without warning, Garfield’s tone turned sinister. “Don’t take me for a fool, Ernesto. I know the entire time I explained the plan, you were devising ways to spin things in your favor. It won’t work. Remember who you are. Remember your place. You’re my hound now, and I control your body and your mind. You better pray to God that I don’t decide to control more. Now, go get some rest. You’ll need it as we prepare to capture Mr. Carter.”

  Garfield shooed Ernesto away.

  Ernesto grinned in defiance and trotted back to his bunk. He climbed into bed and laid his head gently on the pillow. He was nearly asleep when Garfield’s words echoed in his head.

  Pray to God?

  It dawned on Ernesto that he hadn’t prayed since he’d been revived. Not only was it in line with his beliefs, but it had always kept him calm and collected in his previous bodies. He thought it would be a good time to rekindle the habit with the looming missions, so he took a deep breath and readied his mouth.

  Nothing came out.

  Puzzled, Ernesto wracked his brain. Nowhere could he find the words to the prayer he’d said literally thousands of times. With this realization, the tiniest bit of despair crept into his mind, and he muttered under his breath, “I’ll find a way to get what I want if it’s the last thing I do.”

  Chapter 19:

  Awakening the Unknown

  “I’ll find a way to get what I want if it’s the last thing I do.” I was being playfully dramatic about breakfast. “Even if I have to raise the chickens myself, I’m going to have eggs. How else am I supposed to get enough protein?”

  Helen smiled. “Or you could just eat more beans, nuts, and seeds. If I wasn’t so nervous and nauseous for this procedure, I’d have cleared this table by now.”

  We both chuckled, and it really put things into perspective. We were surprisingly chipper for such an important day. As far as we’d come in the last few months, it always felt like we were kidding ourselves trying to get out of the Padre’s shadow even if he was gone. The plans we’d made to join the local gym and test the limits of our bodies seemed more like a carrot at the end of a stick than an actual goal. The relatively fulfilling jobs we worked didn’t offer much in terms of a future even if we’d gotten our credit budget under control. And beyond professing our love for each other and moving in together, we hadn’t really discussed where our relationship was headed. I was certain that my recent bout of lying didn’t make matters any simpler.

  Regardless, the last few months seemed like nothing compared to what we’d discovered with the Shifter Alliance. As difficult as the trials ahead would be, there was something refreshing about being with a group dedicated to our wellbeing and the wellbeing of so many others. While I had my disagreements, I believed their hearts were in the right place, challenging the powers that be.

  After awakening our hosts, Helen and I would be able to play a significant role in changing the world. In that sense, it felt like the day Charlie had gone off to boot camp. Saying goodbye to Sarah, he was as excited as he was scared. One major difference was that my significant other was coming along for the ride. From that perspective, it made complete sense. We were being silly the morning before the rest of our lives began.

  Tony spotted our demeanor as he approached the table. “Look at the smitten couple, already bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.”

  Helen was her usual snarky self. “No, it’s all a conspiracy. You should do some digging to find out how we really feel.”

  Tony turned to me with wide eyes. “Keep her away from J-A. Otherwise, we’ll all be sobbing before lunch.”

  Giggling ensued, and Tony sighed happily. “If you’ve had your fill, let’s make our way to the migration area.”

  We cleaned up after ourselves and followed him. Passing the mind-pair intercourse rooms, I couldn’t help but wonder. “Tony, how will awakening our hosts affect Helen and my relationship? What if Natalie and Charlie don’t like each other? How will Helen know when I’m Charlie? And when she’s Natalie?”

  Helen extended her neck in anticipation of Tony’s response.

  “That’s something you’re going to have to work out. Every mind-pair must establish trust and boundaries.”

  Helen jumped in. “But Natalie has no clue that she’s a host. She has no clue who I am or what I’ve done with her body.”

  Tony nodded. “She might have a vague idea of your existence, but you’re correct in that she doesn’t know how her body has been used. We have some techniques to help new recruits smooth the transition. The good news is that both Ryan’s and your host will awaken together. We’ve found that newly awakened hosts do best when they feel they’re not alone. Natalie and Charlie will have each other throughout the process even if they aren’t the best of friends at first.”

  We made it to the lab and came to a series of small rooms with open metal doors. Each had a bed and a chair next to a large computer terminal. When I looked inside, my eyes instinctively went up. Sure enough, they were equipped with medical disc stations in the ceiling just like at ADG. We came to the last two rooms, and R-J passed us in the hallway.

  He nodded
and smiled. “He’s ready for you.”

  We found Doc typing away at one of the computers in a room. He peered out at us, and his grin couldn’t have been any wider. “Good morning, Ryan! And it’s nice to meet you, Helen!”

  Tony turned to us with a smirk. “Can you tell? He really enjoys awakening minds.”

  Doc grinned through a frown. “What’s not to enjoy? Consciousness should be conscious.” He glanced at Tony. “We’re good to go, thanks to R-J.”

  True to character, J-A interrupted from behind. “Good morning. Tony will be working with Charlie-Ryan in number four.” She pointed to the last room. “I’ll work with Natalie-Helen in number three. Any questions before we begin?”

  We both shook our heads.

  J-A motioned for Helen to follow her, and they disappeared through a door. I moseyed into my room. Tony followed and closed the door behind him.

  “First things first.” He grabbed a hospital gown from the hook on the door. “Get undressed and put this on.”

  I followed his instructions while he typed into the computer terminal, averting his eyes respectfully. When I was ready, I sat down on the bed, awaiting his next command.

  “We gotta get the disc on you. Hold still.”

  He typed a few keystrokes into the terminal, and the saucer revealed itself from the ceiling. Over my head, it transformed and locked on.

  Tony warned, “Here comes the pinch to the base of your skull. Just relax and breathe.”

  “Ugh!” I didn’t miss that discomfort.

  “Please stretch your arms out in front of you to accommodate the IVs.”

  I complied. The tentacles coiled out and penetrated my veins without issue. The computer fluttered to life with beeps and boops as it began processing my vitals and brain activity.