Dead Cell

by Chris Johnson

  Craig nodded. "Remote viewing is the ability to see things from a distance. It was a big part of Stargate Project back in the 1970's," he explained. "If you've seen that movie about men staring at goats, you would know about the project although it never mentioned it in blatant terms. They planned to use remote viewers to gain intelligence on countries, enemy sites, and that sort of thing without actually sending a live person there. Cameras, satellites, and drones can be detected; so can the stealth fighters to a degree; and it's cheaper to use a clairvoyant. Your car's safe of bugs and devices, by the way."

  Brianna, although having guessed that he was "psyching" her car, still felt surprised but continued the conversation; she clicked the button on her car's remote, unlocking it.

  "Are clairvoyants reliable enough?" Brianna asked, opening the passenger side door. "Apart from you, I've never seen one above dodgy status. They're always vague, speaking in riddles and fishing for clues while acting all knowing when they get a hit. Half the time their clients are telling them everything already."

  Craig laughed. "That's called cold reading," he explained, "and, yes, there are clairvoyants, true clairvoyants, who operate out there. I know some of them, but I also know a lot of fakes, and a good deal of them are people with a low self-esteem; they mean well but need serious psychological help themselves. It takes all kinds. Anyway, if you read online, the story is that Stargate Project shut down in the 1990's. That's just a cover as the government doesn't want to be openly involved still."

  "Then how are the Army involved, if that's not the government?"

  "Private funding," Craig explained. "What happened with Joseph's twin?"

  "My hacker friend has no more information on that yet, but he's still looking."

  Craig nodded, biting his bottom lip. "Is he a conspiracy theory nut, by any chance?"

  Brianna laughed. "Yes, he is. That's why he knows how and where to look these things up. How did you know?"

  "I could say it's a lucky guess," he grinned, "but I am hoping he is. I'm concerned that he may be under surveillance himself."

  "I'm pretty sure he is," Brianna replied, pressing Craig into the car's front passenger seat. "He's even on the paranoid side when he talks to me."

  "Maybe he's seen the Krav Maga moves you've pulled on others," Craig responded. "My car's over there, by the way. Where are we going in your car?"

  "My place," Brianna replied in a matter-of-fact tone. "We haven't had dessert yet."

  Chapter 18

  Joseph had been awake since 4am. The voices and images flooding his nightmares still clutched his mind, squeezing him with painful memories that woke him from his restless slumber. Even after leaving his warm bed to brave the winter morning's cold and blustering wind before sunrise with a ten-kilometre run did little to relieve the anxiety. It kept building in him, and then came the other voice, the one that seemed to know him although it didn't seem conscious of him. Now, as he drove another truck through the darkness, following his headlight beams along the forest road towards the highway, he could feel the memories squeezing him again. Why wouldn't they stop?

  He screamed, long and hard into the dark cabin, and his scream seemed to shake a little of the anxiety's grip. It now seemed to hang on with one tentacle-like finger, so he screamed hard and loud again.

  His mission was important, and he had to fulfil it today. The Other Guy planned it for himself, and he couldn't sit by without contributing.

  This would have to be a quick job, quick and dirty, with no time for great plans like the other day. He had to rely on memory. The traffic was growing; people were driving to work already at 5:30am. Society seemed to demand that people work crazy hours as though they were unthinking machines. Once upon a time, people used to go to work to support their family. Nowadays corporations seemed to expect that people came to work because they loved the company so much they forgot their lives, families, and children - the things they wanted to support in the first place.

  The car ahead of him was driving at forty kilometres instead of the posted sixty. What the hell? There was no one ahead of that car, just empty lane as vacant as a politician's head. Joseph huffed. Why couldn't the other driver speed up and meet the limit instead of holding up the traffic? He changed lanes, speeding up to the posted sixty kilometres per hour limit, and looked in at the car's driver as he passed it. The dim-witted guy was talking on the phone, acting like there was nothing wrong with it. Did he think his high visibility vest would protect him from his stupidity? Do people think the problem is only about their speeding while talking or texting on a mobile phone? Well! He would see about that!

  Joseph brought his own truck in front of the other car and slammed the brakes hard. He braced for the impact, just in time, before the car slammed hard into the back of his truck with a crunching jolt. He pulled over to the side of the road, noticing that the guy behind him was doing the same. Joseph's thoughts numbed; just one thought went through his head, an objective, and he had to fulfil it. He opened the truck's door, stepped out into the cold biting air.

  "What the hell were you thinking?" the other driver, a soft-faced man with dark hair cropped close to his head (perhaps to disguise developing male pattern baldness) approached. He had the type of fake smile that belongs to someone in corporate management, maybe some kind of "solutions manager" for a bank or similar place. Another silver-spooned nappy-rash yuppy who thought he was above everyone else he shat on to get his promotions. What Joseph thought to be a high-visibility vest was a high-visibility running outfit, made of a clinging material that did little more than show a thin frame.

  Joseph didn't answer, pretending not to hear, and didn't respond as he approached the driver with a purposeful gait; his hands relaxed, and his heartbeat felt steady. The driver sensed something, but too late; he slowed his approach; a wary look crossed his face. Joseph struck like lightning, using the web of skin between his extended thumb and forefinger, hitting the man in the throat. The driver dropped to the ground, choking as his crushed larynx bled and filled his airways, his eyes opened wide with the horrible realisation of his impending demise.

  Joseph picked the man up, draping the dying man's right arm over his shoulder and holding him there as he walked him back to his car. The driver's door was still open and Joseph dropped the guy inside, sitting him up behind his wheel. No one stopped to look, not that it mattered as Joseph was certain no one would have his description; his coat's collar was up and he wore an old woollen beanie on his head. He'd found the clothes at the Salvo's store and he would give them to a homeless guy later, anyway. The stranger's dead blue eyes stared through the car's windscreen towards Joseph's truck as Joseph got back in and drove away.

  "WAKEY, WAKEY, HANDS off snakey."

  Craig opened his eyes with a start, unsure where he was. The room's closed curtains prevented blocked outside light, and everything was silent except for a familiar voice in his ear. He could just make out the woman's face in front of him. He turned, attempting to roll onto his back, realising it wasn't his bed; this bed felt uncomfortable.

  "Come on, Craig," the woman's voice spoke again, and then he recognised it. Brianna.

  "What happened?" he asked, his eyes adjusting in the darkness. "Did we?"

  Brianna laughed, walking across the room to open the curtains and let the light flood in. "Did we what?"

  Craig blinked in the light and realised he was at Brianna's flat. They had stayed up the night, sharing chocolate rum and raisin ice-cream from a bucket while watching a re-run of some terrible 1980's horror that starred William Katt. Another one started after that; Craig couldn't remember its name but he remembered a farmhouse surrounded by murderous scarecrows. At some point, they had snuggled underneath a blanket, as it had been a cold night. Craig had half-expected sex to happen that night when Brianna lay back in his arms, and there had been plenty of words filled with innuendo already. But they both contented themselves with sharing each other's heat and more deep kisses. They were both tired bu
t their minds raced. Brianna was the first to fall asleep. Craig had carried her to her room and, although he wanted to snuggle with her, to hold her close in bed as they slept, he slept instead on the trundle bed that pulled out from her sofa. Emily would either be so disappointed with him for not making moves, or she would coo over how much of a gentleman he could be. He was just going to keep Emily guessing although she was close with her assumptions.

  Craig lifted the doona away from himself, finding his shoes so he could put them on his feet. He looked at his watch. "We're up early. I thought it was your day off today."

  "I have the morning off," Brianna grinned, her eye twinkling. "But it's not that early. It's only six-thirty."

  Brianna moved towards the kitchen and was about to tell Craig that she lied about having the day off just to have him stay but changed her mind. Brianna wasn't sure if Craig had picked up on her thoughts, knowing she would have enjoyed sex with him, but she was also glad they didn't. Apart from a handful of men, including officers she knew at the station, she had only been with one other man. It had been a serious relationship, serious enough that they talked about marriage, but it had ended all too soon. Snuggling with Craig under the blanket, feeling his warm hard body, even noticing the slight hint of an erection poking against her, awakened feelings and thoughts that she had hidden deep since Tom died. Tom was also slow in moving forward, similar to Craig, and she found that charming. She enjoyed the chase, but she still wondered how much of her thoughts Craig could pick up. Was he slow in moving forward or could he read her when his hands touched hers as he held her from behind?

  "Great," Craig told her. "Go grab your jacket and your phone. We need to uninstall the bugging from it."

  "I swapped the sim into an old phone I still have," she responded, using her peripheral vision to watch his reaction as she looked in the fridge. Craig could be hard to read but Brianna saw a slight flicker on his face. Was it disappointment? She stood, screwed her face up, and shut the fridge door. "Nothing in there," she huffed. "Maybe breakfast out is a good idea."

  A half hour later, they were enjoying breakfast on Mount Staid, overlooking the sprawling city, its suburbs and the river that passed through the centre like a python that had just eaten. The wind was whipping by outside, blowing the trees and tables about, so they chose to sit inside where it was warm. Their conversation turned towards Brianna's interests, including her skills in Krav Maga, which had intrigued him the previous night. But, Brianna's mobile phone rang, interrupting their breakfast conversation; there had been another shooting.

  "Now?" Craig replied. He had been enjoying the conversation too, something that Brianna felt good about inside. "You haven't finished your eggs yet."

  However, she still had to go. Crime scenes don't change, and she could use flex time, anyway. So, they both bolted their breakfast down and Brianna gave Craig a lift, dropping him off near the secure parking spot where his car waited. He waved back when she tooted the horn as she drove off towards the scene on the expressway on the other side of the river.

  The traffic was thick, jammed, and congested. People were sitting in their cars, waiting with varying degrees of patience; most of them looked resigned to yet another delay, and others looked ready to burst as they swore in their car's enclosed air-conditioning. As Brianna watched the traffic, scanning for a possible shortcut, she realised the shooting incident could have caused the delay in the first place. It was at times like this that she wished her car had a siren, so she could start it up and at least crawl past the cars packing the lanes.

  Twenty minutes later, she managed to steer her car towards a legitimate parking spot and stepped out of it. She figured she could be there in less than ten minutes by walking. So she hurried along towards some stairs that took her to the pedestrian way by the expressway.

  "Did you walk all the way?" Sergeant Hohenhaus called to her when he saw her approaching.

  The detective took in the scene. She had only seen photos and video footage of the carnage from the week before on the motorway. This could have ranked a close second if not a tie. A helicopter hovered above, but she didn't look up. She knew it was more likely to be the traffic watch for one of the local radio stations. Some of the other emergency vehicles were present, treating some survivors from the massive pile-up of vehicles.

  "I hate to ask exactly what happened," she muttered. "Has anything been pieced together yet?"

  "Five fatalities shot by the sniper," Hohenhaus told her, in a hushed voice. "And we've already had one of the media people nosing around. Sally Green, I think."

  The name meant something to Brianna. Where did she hear it? Oh, yes, back at Craig's place. She had shot some video of the spirit assassin. "At least we know how they died," she said, holding back an urge to lose her egg-and-bacon breakfast from before.

  A team of forensics officers took swabs and photos of a nearby shooting victim. The poor person, whoever it was, was missing the top of their head. Brianna walked around the car, to get a better look at the windscreen. Some glass crunched under her shoes. A female forensics officer, her eyes blazing with the passion of her job, approached.

  "Detective Cogan?"

  "Yes," Brianna replied, trying to remember her name. "Delta Smith, right?"

  The forensics officer nodded. She was still young, fresh out of university, and seemed to love her job. Brianna had heard that Smith was part of the Goth community, so this work would have been right up her alley. "Looks like the sniper guy again," she said, holding up a crushed bullet in a plastic bag. "Standard SR-98 bullet again. We found this one in the guard rail over there."

  "It's got some blood on it," Brianna observed, turning the bag over in her hand.

  "Yeah," Smith nodded. "It went straight through the lady two cars back from this one. Passed through her, then the car window, and hit the guardrail."

  "Any others?" Brianna asked.

  Smith hesitated, her eyes looked upwards and her lips moved without verbalising the words as she made calculations. "We managed to check the entry and exits on the others. I would have to check them on the office's computer," she responded, pausing to think more. "At a guess, I'd say they came from one of those two buildings across the river."

  Brianna looked in the direction that Smith's finger indicated. She noticed three buildings there, almost all warehouses. "One of those is the abandoned biscuit factory," Brianna said. "It could be a good vantage point for a sniper, given the range of an SR-98 rifle. Would that be about right?"

  Smith looked, thought for a moment and nodded. "I believe so, but I can't be sure yet."

  "Have you told the others yet?" Brianna asked, turning back towards the direction she had left her car.

  Smith shook her head. "No, not yet."

  "I'm going that way now," Brianna responded. "Tell Sergeant Hohenhaus that I will meet him there. If he can't make it, I need others there too, with another forensics team."

  THE POLICE HAD ALREADY started traffic control, attempting to divert it through a couple of other detours, but it was a gradual process. So, although the traffic was now better than a car park, it was still moving at a sloth's pace by the time Brianna reached her Nissan Skyline 370GT. She opened the driver's door, sat inside, and opened her phone's GPS to find a back street route towards the sniper's likely vantage point. Getting there was a gradual process, and she only needed to cross the main traffic flow once, waiting for traffic to move out of the way enough, so she could continue onward. Most people, in their daily commuter habit, were on the main road; few drivers thought to take the back streets, which helped make it easy for her to find her way there.

  A stray random thought drifted into her mind; driving past the restaurant strip reminded her of the previous night's dinner, the fight, and the snuggling afterward. She caught it in time, reminding herself that she was working, and realised that Craig Ramsey still seemed to know more about her than she did about him. Brianna decided she would have to do something about that.

  Th
e phone rang, snapping her thoughts back to the present. Looking down, she picked it up to answer.

  "Hello," she answered, with an almost loving voice.

  "Well, hello to you too."

  It was her hacker friend.

  "Oh, sorry, I thought you were someone else," she replied, feeling a blush spread. She composed herself in time. "What have you got for me, Wez?"

  "I found out more about -"

  Brianna dropped the phone. She felt the sharp dagger-like pain in her shoulder. It numbed her. A fleeting thought crossed her mind. Someone had shot her.

  A shock ripped through her again, disconnecting her.

  She felt like she was-

  Chapter 19

  When Brianna dropped him off, Craig walked straight through to the secure parking complex and made his way to his Jaguar. Emily stood at his car, waiting and tapping her foot.

  "Mister Ramsey!" Emily's tone sounded like a mother who had been waiting up all night. Craig thought it's because she was a mother in a past life. "Where have you been?"

  Craig opened his mouth to answer.

  "Never mind," she snapped. "You just had me worrying all night. I thought you were only going to Nemo's Restaurant, not out with some woman you have hardly known for a fortnight."

  Craig smiled, pressed the button on his car's remote, and opened the driver's door to sit inside. Emily floated in beside him, looking upset. Craig thought she seemed a little testier than usual and, knowing that ghost women don't have the same issues as living women, he had to wonder what it was. "This isn't just about me being out late, is it?"

  "It's nothing unusual," she responded. "I know it's a sign of the times. People are so much more selfish these days. It's all me, me, me."

  Craig felt anger rise in him and felt like blasting back at Emily, believing that she was being selfish herself. But he stopped. Maybe he was being selfish. Then he remembered. "Wait a second. What do you mean selfish? I'm an adult and I also place a high priority on the kids; I mean, Tyrone," he roared.