Hunting Nora Stone

by Colin Weldon

  “But something went wrong didn’t it? You fucked with her head and now she’s gone completely nuts” Eddie said.

  Abigail looked at him.

  “They also took something else from her,” Abigail said.

  Eddie looked blankly at her.

  “They thought the memory of it had been wiped,” Abigail said.

  “What was it?” Eddie said.

  “Her baby,” Abigail replied, “she was nine months pregnant and they took her. A girl.”

  Eddie turned away from her and looked out at the blue skies through the window. He thought back to the message on the wall. I am coming for her.

  “Is she still alive?” Eddie asked her.

  Abigail shifted in her seat.

  “I don’t know. She was taken to the Academy and put into the development core. I don’t see them until they’re already augmented,” Abigail said.

  Eddie was stunned.

  “What? You’re kidding me. Jaguar is augmenting children? Bullshit,. I would have known about that,” Eddie said.

  “No, you wouldn’t,” Abigail replied, “they’re based underground in the Nevada desert. Only a handful of people are aware of their existence. The President doesn’t even know about it,” Abigail said.

  Eddie shook his head.

  “That’s impossible,” he said. “There’s no underground base in Nevada, I’m stationed in global surveillance for Christ’s sake.” He paused. “You’re not talking about…area 51 are you?”

  He, of course, knew about the Air Force testing facility which the world believed was some sort of alien hide-out but which was really just a propulsion and aeronautics facility testing future aircraft and high tech weapons systems.

  “Well it’s a little more than that Eddie, I’ve spent a lot of time there and there’s more going on that just aircraft testing. It’s an army, Eddie, the future of the US Military. Part human, part machine.” She paused, “and in some cases all machine.”

  She looked at him with cold eyes. Eddie met her gaze and raised one of his eyebrows.

  “Tarsis,” Abigail said, “is something different. He’s a prototype. A complete fusion of bio-engineered cybernetics.”

  Eddie sat up straight.

  “Come on Abigail, what is this? Some sort of joke?” Eddie said. “We don’t have that kind of technology,”

  Abigail leaned back in her seat.

  “You’re saying there’s a fucking cyborg on our tail?”

  Abigail sighed.

  “I was there when they activated him, Eddie. I was there to see if there was any cognitive recognition, any memory. I performed weeks of testing on him. I saw his eyes, his human eyes open, he looked at me. I don’t know where they got the technology.. I wasn’t given that information. He looks human. From the neck up anyway. His body is some sort of graphene carbon composite, but it looks and moves exactly like we do. It scared the hell out of me. I believed in what I was doing Eddie, but this… this was different. I remember vomiting when the session was over,” Abigail said.

  Eddie could see her eyes begin to well up slightly.

  “Nora Stone doesn’t want you to trust me because of what I did to her. And because of what they did to her daughter.”

  Eddie leaned against the headrest and closed his eyes, trying to process it.

  “If Tarsis is in the field, he’ll make Nora Stone look like a training exercise in comparison. I’ve seen what he can do. His speed, his strength. We’re in serious trouble here, Eddie. We’re not getting out of this alive,” Abigail said clearly exhibiting a panic in her voice.

  There was silence between them as Eddie looked out the window at the beautiful day that had emerged outside.

  Eddie began to feel cold. His wet clothes were starting to make him shiver. He looked at Abigail.

  “She said they’re going to kill Royo,” he said suddenly.

  Abigail remained silent.

  “I swear to god, Doc, if you know anything about this, if you have a hidden agenda, I’ll kill you myself,” Eddie said.

  Abigail looked at him before dropping her eyes to the ground.

  “No agenda, Eddie. And I don’t know anything about a plot to kill the president. But we need a new plan,” Abigail said.

  Eddie nodded.

  “First things first, I need to get out of these clothes,” he said standing up.

  “Then what?” said Abigail looking up at him.

  “Then,” he paused thinking, “then we need to ditch this helicopter, there’s too many eyes on us. And we have to get to Paris before they do.”

  Abigail frowned.

  “How exactly do you plan on doing that?” she said.

  “We go see an old friend,” he said.

  Paris

  Airport-Le Bourget

  The wheels of Air Force one touched down gracefully. Royo pulled off his glasses and watched as the tarmac blurred across the window. The engines gave a roar as the plane began its braking procedure. Royo tensed his stomach as he leaned against the force of the deceleration. He looked over at his head of protection, Todd Holt, who was flipping through a handout of security arrangements for the summit and then back out at the slowing runway. Royo had just finished reading the file on Eddie Conrad and was feeling sick. He had let him down. A highly decorated man of honour. How Conrad had survived the militant camps for as long as he did still remained a mystery to him. A strength of will far more advanced than his. The “free world” he had taken over was becoming a dark place. He was lost in thought about how it had it all started all those years ago.

  He had agreed to begin his campaign at 2am on a Sunday evening in the kitchen of his farmhouse over a ham and cheese sandwich with Ginny. He had told her he would only do it if he could fight for those who could not fight for themselves. She had smiled at him and given him a kiss and called him an old romantic.

  The world was a dangerous place. And now someone or something was trying to impose a new kind of rule under his watch. He began to feel angry. Angry that he had let his grief send him into a cloud of indifference over the last several months. His enemies had taken advantage of his apathy and two soldiers had been assassinated under his nose without so much as a phone call to ask him for his permission. He raised his fist and slammed it on his desk sending an empty glass tumbling onto the floor.

  Holt looked up at him and stopped flicking through his briefing.

  “Everything alright sir?” Holt said.

  Royo felt his heart pounding in his chest.

  “No, everything is not alright,” Royo replied, picking up the phone.

  “Kroch?’ he said as he pressed the earpiece to his ear, “I want you to assemble the joint chiefs and have them prepare for a video conference in one hour,” he paused. “I don’t care where I am supposed to be; get it done.”

  He slammed down the phone. He looked over at Holt who was just staring at him. Ginny trusted Holt. His close proximity to the couple over the last six years had created a bond that Royo relied on. He thought it important to get to know a man who would take a bullet for him; get to know him very, very well.

  “Why didn’t you stay in the military, Todd?” Royo asked. “You could have been a general.”

  Holt sat back in his chair and folded his briefing pack.

  “I didn’t like the idea of ordering men to their deaths,” Holt replied, “if someone was going to be sacrificed, I would rather it was me.”

  Royo could not help but smile at his friend.

  “You must be a barrel of laughs at parties.”

  “I am not known for my sense of humour,” Holt replied.

  “You need to get yourself a girl, Todd.”

  Holt smiled.

  “I’ll take a bullet over a woman any day of the week,” he replied.

  Royo laughed.

 
“Far less painful and it’s over quickly.”

  “Yes sir,” Holt replied pausing for a moment, “Sir, you know I always have your back.”

  Royo was not expecting that comment and it caught him a little off guard. While Holt would never discuss policy or anything that he had seen or heard in the Oval office, Royo knew that the head of the secret service was always more aware of his surroundings than he was. The devil was in the details.

  “You picked a tough job in this new world, you know that?” Royo said.

  “Maybe, but your burden is far greater than mine sir. I only have to take a bullet; you have to take many knives,” replied Holt.

  Royo smiled at the analogy.

  “The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves,” Royo replied.

  “Yes sir,” replied Holt.

  Royo looked at him for a moment before opening the drinks cabinet behind him and taking out two glasses and a bottle of malt scotch.

  “You never talk about your brother Todd,” Royo said.

  Holt paused and glanced out of the small porthole window.

  “Dylan was a pain in the ass sir, but he was a good friend and brother. That was a tough year, for us both sir, but he died doing what he loved,” Holt replied.

  Royo smiled as he poured two short glasses and handed one to Holt.

  “I’m on duty sir,” Holt said.

  “So am I, to absent friends,” Royo said raising the glass.

  Holt paused for a moment before reciprocating. There was a quiet reverence in the room as they both downed the scotch in one go. Royo placed the glass back on the table.

  “Well, let’s get back to it,” Royo said.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  In the split second it took for Tarsis to fasten his seat belt, he had already run through half a million calculations. How many times to close his eye lids per seconds to simulate accurate blinking, the correct pressure to apply to his facial muscles to simulate smiling, the correct vocal tones to simulate his voice control as he thanked the stewardess for helping him to his seat. In the midst of his calculations he was also processing the passport details of every passenger currently on this flight, cross-referencing them with Interpol and FBI databases. He was checking their next of kin, their home addresses, professions, criminal records, college educations, religious and sexual orientations, children’s profiles and travel habits. He flagged the US Marshal sitting to the rear of the Boeing A320 before he boarded the plane and noted the location of his weapon, which was holstered behind his right hip.

  He looked out of the window at the details of every vehicle and every worker within visual range, matching their identities into the airport personnel computer which he had remotely accessed as soon he arrived at the airport. He looked at the two baggage handlers below the window as they nonchalantly threw customers’ bags onto the conveyor belt, and locked onto their faces. A small display within his visual perspective grabbed their identities as their personal files began scanning in front of his eyes, quickly telling him who they were. He placed his hand on his lap and looked forward as he prepared to shut himself down into a standby mode in order to conserve power. He would need recharging as soon he landed. He was about to close his eyes when a large man proceeded to sit beside him. He looked to his right and watched as the man struggled to fit his girth in between the arm rests. He quickly ran his face through the database and located his details. His name was Walter Delafield. From Texas. Fifty one years old. A used car salesman from Dallas. Widowed with two children, Danny and Gracie. Walter looked at Tarsis and gave him a large grin.

  “Howdy partner, looks like we’re gonna be plane buddies,” said Walter as he forced himself down into the seat.

  In a fraction of a second Tarsis ran his conversation sub routines and formulated an appropriate response. He sent the correct signals to his facial muscles and opened his eyes wide giving Walter a large smile.

  “Well, hello there, sure looks like it,” replied Tarsis in a perfect Texan accent.

  Walter seemed overjoyed at the response and reached one of his huge hands over to shake his. Tarsis reacted quickly by anticipating the appropriate handshake strength, matching it just enough to convey confidence and not crush every bone in the man’s hand.

  “Well goddam if it ain’t a kindred spirit, my name is Walter, Walter Delafield, a pleasure to meet you,” said Walter vigorously shaking Tarsis’s hand.

  “Charlie Redmond,” replied Tarsis conveying an eager friendship.

  “Heck of a grip you got there partner, you should be in sales with a grip like that,” replied Walter.

  “Well heck, if that ain’t the truth,” replied Tarsis smiling enough to make sure his teeth were showing.

  “What brings you down these parts?” replied Walter trying to pull away from the handshake.

  Tarsis looked at Walter curiously as a small bead of sweat began to appear on his face. He calculated that his grip on Walter’s hand may have been tighter than he had originally anticipated and released the man’s hand, which looked red.

  “I’m in surgical equipment sales, just polishin’ off a few steers and getting back to the ranch,” replied Tarsis looking at the man as he flexed his fat fingers.

  “Ain’t that the truth, I’m in the automotive trade myself. Delafield’s Cars, the finest used vehicles in Dallas,” said Walter producing a card from his pocket and handing it to Tarsis.

  The card was printed on thin paper and was torn on the upper right hand corner. It looked old. On one side it had the contact details of Walter and on the other in large red type it read ’SADDLE UP’ and had a picture of a horse with four wheels where its legs should have been. Tarsis looked at it and accessed the web site listed. Sure enough it was a small local dealership selling second hand cars and even had a large photo of the Walter dressed in full cowboy gear sitting on an old Dodge Ram truck. The engines of the plane came to life as Tarsis gazed out of the window, making one final check.

  “Hell yeah, I mean they may be second hand, but goddam I guarantee they’ll get you to where ya gotta be,” the Walter continued to say.

  Tarsis looked across Walter at the row of seats next to them and saw that the other passengers were beginning to look at them. He decided that this person could draw unwanted attention and made a quick calculation. He looked to his rear and saw that the stewardess was busy attending to an overhead locker. He looked back at Walter.

  “Well that’s just mighty fine,” replied Tarsis.

  He locked his visual sensors onto the base of Walter’s neck and in one sharp motion he flattened out his right hand and struck him squarely on the jaw. Walter’s head dropped. With his right hand, Tarsis gently placed his hand under the now limp head and rested it tilting backwards onto the head rest just as a stewardess walked past.

  “Must have been a long day,” said Tarsis in a British accent as he smiled at her.

  The stewardess returned his smile and moved past them both and into the forward area of the plane. Tarsis looked across the aisle at a little girl who was staring at him. Her mouth was open. Her father whispered to her.

  “Don’t stare,” he said into her ear.

  Tarsis looked at the little girl, smiled and winked at her. She looked scared. He suddenly looked ahead and ran a quick diagnostic on himself wondering why he had done it. There was no record of the requested facial action. He logged it for further analysis for when he returned to base and thought nothing more of it. He returned his gaze forward and began running a self-diagnostic on all systems. He closed his eyes and reopened the file on Nora Stone.

  Her shoulders ached. It had been a long swim, and while any other ordinary person would have drowned from exhaustion, the one advantage of having cybernetic implants was that she could have swum for a hundred more miles with relative ease. Her upper back hurt, though. Her organic muscles that connected to the technology.
The wind filled her ears as she drove the motorcycle she had stolen up the long dirt road to the clearing. The makeshift airstrip was a remnant from one of the now disbanded cartels in the region. Nora rolled her shoulder blades and tried to warm up the stiff muscles that were close to cramping up. She thought back to the shack in Jakarta and the rage that had taken her over. She had stayed there too long. She shook her head, realising that she should have left a day earlier. While Eddie Conrad had been quite proficient at tracking her, the real problem was Tarsis. She had known the man before he had been harvested. Had seen him as a human and not a machine. He was stronger than her, faster and more intelligent and she was. He was unbound by the weaknesses that befell a human body. The Quorum wanted her gone and she had let her anger about that cloud her judgment. It was, however, primal. Sown into the fabric of her DNA. No amount of technology could take away her most basic instinct. The search and rescue of her child. They would pay for what they had done to her under the guise of saving her life. She rounded a sharp corner throwing a cloud of dust up into the air from her rear tyre.

  She thought back to the kill that had changed everything.

  It was supposed to have been an evaluation of Tarsis’s performance. A hit to iron out any last minute glitches with an easy enough target, mainly a chance to log tactics and response times and to see how well he performed in the field. The humidity on the mountainside at San Hernando, an hour south of Bogota, that night had been stifling. Tarsis approached the compound from the east, Nora from the west. Signals were transmitted only when guards were neutralised. Nora encountered three after scaling the wall and dropping to the ground like a cat. She had dispatched them with ease. The clicks in her ear told her that Tarsis was on schedule and approaching the rear of the white stone mansion, Nora proceeded through an area of greenery and into a side door leading into a pantry.

  She slid past a wooden pull-down platform full of an assortment of vegetables before moving the door, clearing the area and sliding up the stairs. There were two guards on the landing. Large muscular men, each one and dressed in tight black suits. Goons. The guard closest to her had his back conveniently away from her and was walking slowly towards the bedroom door when she heard a thump. The guard on the other end of the hall had dropped. She didn’t hesitate. Two popping sounds from her weapon were followed hastily with the collapse of the guard closest to her, one in the head, one in the heart. She saw Tarsis approach, right on schedule, his weapon now resting by his hip. He was efficient; she had to give him that. He had a systematic and almost rhythmic way to the way he walked. Smooth. There was something cold about him. Not the kind of coldness a killer needed to carry out a job. Something else. She couldn’t help the uneasy feeling that he would and was about to turn on her at any moment. He was vacant, devoid of loyalty and experience. She looked at him as he clicked his earpiece notifying her that they could proceed inside the bedroom. She stared into his piercing human-like eyes for a moment before taking her position beside the door. She nodded to Tarsis who quietly pressed down the brass handle. He peered inside for less than a second before whispering to Nora.