“Lift up the back of your shirt,” the young man said, taking a syringe from his pocket.
“Who the hell are you?” Jeffrey asked, again.
“We need to hurry.”
“You’re not getting anywhere near me with that needle until you explain yourself. We clear?”
The young man looked at Leif, and Leif nodded agreement.
“You may have unlocked our cuffs,” Jeffrey said, “but this could just be a tactic, the old Mutt and Jeff mind bend.”
“Ah.” The young man’s face brightened as he held up his index finger. He motioned with his hand. “Follow me.” He walked away from them, down the hallway.
Jeffrey began shuffling after him, holding the wall. Leif grabbed Jeffrey’s arm and helped him walk. As they came into the area with the metal desk, Jeffrey squinted through the bright light and saw a spray of blood on the wall, and then three bodies, each with a caved in area on its temple. On the desk lay a collapsible baton with a steel ball at the end, wet with blood.
“Yeah,” was all Jeffrey could think to say.
“Yep,” the young man said, smoothing back his hair. “They went down pretty easy. They sure didn’t suspect me.” He grasped the rim of his glasses and adjusted them as if he had just completed a complex physics problem. Jeffrey shuffled over to one of the bodies. With some effort and intense pain, he lifted his foot and stepped with his full weight on the folded hand. The bones cracked.
Definitely dead or, at the least, dying.
“They’ll have more soldiers here soon,” Leif said. He pointed at a broad-lensed camera mounted in the corner, up where the wall met the ceiling.
“Oh, don’t worry,” the young man said, “the guys who monitor those cameras were playing cards the last time I walked by the security booth. We still need to hurry though.”
“Doesn’t it bother you at all that you just killed three men?” Jeffrey asked, staring at the kid’s face, searching for his reaction to the question.
The young man looked at each body. He laughed and said, “I suppose it should. I’ve never so much as hit someone before, but it had to be done. Doesn’t bother me though. I back my brother up one hundred percent. He said to help you, so I’m helping you. I suppose after what happened to him, every one of these bastards can die for all I care.”
Frustrated anger showed in Jeffrey’s voice as he asked one more time, “Who—the—hell—is your brother?”
“We really have to get going,” the young man said, bringing out the syringe from his thigh pocket again. “You’ll need this.” He walked toward Jeffrey.
Jeffrey let him get close and then grabbed his wrist. He said, his voice growling in anger, “Who are you–who’s your brother–and what’s in that hypo?”
The young man tugged at his arm, and Jeffrey tightened his grip. The young man looked at the door and then back to Jeffrey.
“Okay, but then we get the hell out of here, right?”
“Exactly,” Jeffrey said, and let go of the young man’s wrist.
“My name’s Kyle Morgan. My brother’s Brennan Morgan. You tried to kill him. At least I thought you did, until I got a chance to talk to him. He told me what had happened, and how—laying in the freighter’s wrecked bridge waiting to die—he’d had a revelation: the cause was wrong.” Kyle Morgan picked up the collapsible baton, wiped it on his thigh and then slammed it end-down on the desk, shoving it back in on itself. He slid it into a thigh pocket.
“I was angry with him at first,” he continued. “But I followed my brother into this, and when he talked me through his thought process, I realized he was right. Maxine King has to be stopped.”
Jeffrey held up his hands. “I don’t follow any of this. I don’t know your brother. I’ve never met a Brennan Morgan, and I know I’ve never met you.” Then Kyle Morgan looked back at the door. As he turned his head, Jeffrey saw the resemblance. Kyle’s brother had turned the same way moments before he had been shot.
Jeffrey said, “Your brother was the first gunship’s commander, the one who was shot by his own man. Shaggy blonde hair and a scar on his face, right?”
“Yeah, that’s him,” Kyle said. “You could have killed him, but you didn’t. Instead, you gave him pain meds.”
“You realize I would have killed him, given the need.”
“No, that’s not the point,” Kyle said, looking back at the door. “Look, we have to get going now.” He held up the syringe.
“Last thing,” Jeffrey said. “What’s in the syringe?”
“It’s a local anesthetic and an anti-inflammatory mix,” Kyle said. “That’s what took me so long to get down here. I had to get this ready.”
“You know about this stuff?” Jeffrey asked, unsure he wanted this kid to inject him with anything.
“I’m a medic. Brennan wanted me to join up, but I’m a conscientious objector myself. I’m more into helping.”
“I would argue,” Leif said, motioning toward the three bodies, “that you have a bit more self-discovery to do.”
“Oh,” Kyle looked over the bodies as he adjusted his glasses, “I suppose if I’m properly motivated…”
“Okay,” Jeffrey said, “I don’t have any other options, so let’s do this.”
Kyle grinned like a kid who had just been given permission to knock a hole in a wall. He walked around behind Jeffrey. Jeffrey felt the back of his shirt being lifted followed by a sharp pain in his lower back as the needle slid home. The spike of pain released, and then Jeffrey felt another spike.
“I’m giving you four injections, two on either side. This will block out a lot of the nerve impulses. You won’t feel as much pain, but don’t be fooled, your back is still messed up, so take it easy. You could end up crippling yourself. These injections are taking away an important message your body is giving you.”
The pain in Jeffrey’s back melted away, and he was left with only the numb feeling down his left leg. He took a step and the electric tingle ran down his right leg, but not painfully so.
“Better?” Kyle asked.
“Definitely.”
“Great. Now I have to get you out of here.”
Jeffrey reached down and pulled a tazer and baton off one of the bodies. Leif followed his example. Jeffrey took the third soldier’s tazer and handed it to Kyle.
“We’re not leaving,” Jeffrey said. “You say you want to help?”
“My brother said to.”
“Then help me find Maxine King.”
CHAPTER 28
Maxine King slept in a drugged haze. As she rolled to one side, the bandage on her face crinkled. The stitched-in flesh shifted and pain, overreaching the drugs, stabbed deep into her skull. She woke with a moan. She tried to focus her eyes on the dark room, but could not. She closed her eyes and drifted. She remembered the doctor’s face, too intimately close, as he stabbed her with anesthetic. He pressed the hooked needle into her lip with a dull pressure and then pulled it away from her, tugging the suture tight. He brought out a black tube with a cord and told her he was reattaching blood vessels. The smoke made her stomach clench.
She woke again and cursed through the bandages around her mouth. She could not get the doctor out of her head. Each time she closed her eyes it was the same. She looked at the clock next to her bed. Its green numbers blurred. She looked back into the unfocused darkness and felt she was not alone in the room. Out of the darkness, a large figure walked up to the bed and leaned over her. She concentrated on the blurred face, brought it into focus, and saw that it was Holt. She tried to call out for a soldier. As she opened her mouth, searing pain lit up her face. The darkness of the room smudged into violet watercolors. She let herself sink into the mattress. Her eyes closed, and the doctor was back in front of her, pulling the thread through her lip. The thread went taught and tugged at her numb face.
The doctor leaned in close again and said in a whisper, “You’re a stupid bitch for letting her get that close to you.”
Fury boiled up in her, t
rying to surface through the slick of drugs. However, she remembered the doctor was only a dream and calmed herself, nodding agreement.
“The most important thing is…,” the doctor said.
Maxine focused on the doctor’s face as he spoke, but when he opened his mouth to continue, a faint alarm came out. Maxine’s eyes fluttered open to darkness. The door to her room opened, white light shocked her eyes, and the alarm blared. She pressed her hands over her drugged ears and closed her eyes. The doctor pulled at the thread again and spoke, but she could not hear him with her hands over her ears. She pulled her hands away, and the doctor said, “Maxine, I’m sorry, there’s been an alarm, and…”
She opened her eyes and found Carter Roberts leaning over her. The door to her room had closed, muffling the alarm. She tried with some success to focus on Carter’s face.
“We just need to make sure you’re safe.”
“An alarm?” she asked, her throat dry. “What’s happened?”
“Nothing,” Carter said, laying his hand on her forehead.
Carter has been such a good friend to me for so many years, so faithful.
She felt safe with him beside her.
“We just need to check to make sure everything is secure, and then we’ll be on our way.” People moved through the room, their flashlights sweeping the walls.
She tried to speak again, but pain lanced through her lower jaw and up into her sinus. She pointed at the lights.
“They’re doing a quick sweep of your room,” Carter said, “just as a precaution.”
“Why…” She wanted to ask him why a sweep was necessary but became confused.
Why are all these soldiers in my room?
She could not remember what Carter had said, and that frustrated her. She shoved Carter’s hand off her forehead. Carter turned and walked away. The door opened, and the splitting light filled the room again. The alarm blared. The door shut, and everything became muffled. The loneliness of the room wrapped around her, and the pain killers drew her under. The doctor pulled the thread away from her face again and, as the thread went taught, tugged at the flesh.
“You will unite the world,” the doctor said, “be its mother.”
Why is this fool reminding me of this? Of course I will unite the world.
God had given her visions of the truth and shown her that she would be the one to create the next social revolution: peace and prosperity burned into the human race through nuclear fire. Thinking of the bombs again, she imagined the ships exploding, sweeping power from the warmongers’ hands. She would hold military sovereignty and would use it to bring peace. These thoughts calmed her, and she slipped into a vast emptiness.
…
She woke at dawn. The drugs had receded enough to leave her with a stiff pain in her face, but she could focus her eyes and think clearly. She tried to piece together her disjointed memories from the night before.
Had Carter really come in here?
She thought of the dreams and became irritated. She should have more self-control. She had to be strong; she had a revolution to champion. Sitting up, she slid her feet to the carpet. She was fine. She stood up, walked to the door, opened it, and looked out. Two soldiers holding rifles looked over at her.
What in God’s name had happened last night?
She closed the door and walked to the smooth, black panel of the intercom desk. She touched the panel, and displays imbedded in the obsidian surface turned on. She muted the video feed and dialed Roberts.
When he answered, she cut him off. Talking brought a tearing pain to her lower lip and jaw. The pain, coupled with the bandaging on her face, muddied her speech. “Mr. Roberts, what is going on?”
“Ma’am?”
“Why do I have guards with rifles at the door to my bedchamber?”
He did not answer. She heard him give a muffled order to someone.
“Mr. Roberts?”
“There’s been a small problem,” Carter Roberts said. “We’ll have it in hand soon.”
“What has happened?”
“Until we have it in hand, you should stay there.”
“What the hell has happened?” She opened her mouth too far and winced.
“Holt and his son escaped last night.”
Fear rushed through Maxine as if cold water had been poured down the tube of her spine. She considered the vision of Holt bending over her in the night.
He hadn’t really been here. He would have attacked me. The vision merely foretold of his escape.
“Carter?”
“Yes, ma’am?”
“Did you come into my bedchamber last night?”
“Yes, after we were notified of the escape, we came in with a security detail and searched your bedchamber thoroughly.”
“You found nothing?”
“You are safe there. We swept the area and then posted guards, two at the door and two at the end of the hallway.”
“Thank you, Carter.”
“Yes, ma’am. You are welcome, ma’am.”
She tapped ‘end call’ on the screen and then placed her palms on the smooth surface of the desk, bracing herself against the burning in her face. As the clarity in her mind increased, so did the pain from her injury. She walked back to her bed and took the orange vial of pills from her night stand. She remembered the doctor prescribing them.
The label read: Take one pill by mouth every four hours, as needed for pain.
She sat on the edge of the bed and shook two of the pills into the palm of her hand. Then she slid the pills, one at a time, through her parted teeth. Taking a glass with a straw from the nightstand, she put the straw between her lips. She tried to sip at the straw and her lower lip flared with pain. Gripping her sheets with her free hand, she waited for the pain to pass. When it had diminished, she used her tongue against the roof of her mouth to trap and seal the straw, and sipped at the water. She set the glass down and swallowed the water.
She lay back on the bed and looked up at the vaulted ceiling. The pain in her face continued to grow in intensity. Tears began forming in her eyes as she wondered how much worse it would become. Then, a luxurious easiness spread over her. It started between her shoulder blades and melted up into her neck. When it reached her face, the pain diffused and faded away. The walls shifted to a cool, deep blue and seemed to lift away from her. The sunlight, coming through the garden windows, flowed with individual photons. She smiled, and a distant pressure reminded her to keep her face still. She inhaled. The air sliding through her teeth and into her nostrils felt like silk. Her eyes rolled back in her head, and stars turned above her in sparkling, blue hues.
From far away, she heard the click of a door. She opened her eyes. The ceiling spun back from the darkness of the stars, and she looked toward the garden. The door hung open, and the blue sky over the trees shimmered violet. She closed her eyes.
“You are a very beautiful woman,” a voice said. The pitch of the voice ran along her spine with a brilliant green vibration, and the small of her back tingled. She smiled, feeling dull pressure in her lip.
“But not that smart.”
What?
She opened her eyes and found Jeffrey Holt sitting on the bed beside her, the morning light glowing around his shoulders and head.
“Oh, the dream man is back,” she said, feeling the distant ache in her mouth.
“I had no idea you felt that way.”
“I do. You are a strange part of my mind, aren’t you? Trying to scare me.” She sat up, supporting herself on her elbows, and observed the aura surrounding this vision of Holt.
“Why are you here?”
“I’m going to convince you to stop those nukes.”
He lifted a baton from his lap and smacked it in his palm. With each smack a cascade of stardust fell out of his hand.
What could this mean? Why am I envisioning him here now?
Jeffrey’s son walked up beside him and she chuckled, saying, “You as well?”
The
n a third man, who wore glasses, walked up.
The man said, “We have to hurry. The room’s soundproofed, but someone could come at any moment. I locked the door, but it would be easy enough to kick in.”
She squinted her eyes to better focus on the man’s face. She did not know him. Then she looked at Jeffrey and his son, and she thought for a moment that they were real.
But I am safe here. Carter said so. Why is this vision of the third man coming to me?
She studied his face. Then she looked over all three men and noticed that they wore black uniforms, the same style Carter issued to her soldiers.
What could that mean?
“She’s so drugged up she won’t feel a thing,” Holt’s son said.
“Dammit,” Holt said, “look at her. She isn’t even afraid.”
“Why should I be afraid of you?” she asked Holt. “You can’t stop that which is destined to be.”
Holt raised the baton and brought it down on her shin. She heard a resonant thump, but only felt a dull sensation pressing into her leg, as if something soft and heavy had been set there. She studied their faces, intent on understanding the vision.
“You see?” Holt said. “Nothing.”
That’s it! I am receiving a confirmation that God will not let me fail. Holt, the last symbol of resistance, cannot hurt me; he cannot stop me.
She felt the joy of impending victory rise up again.
“That’s not a problem,” the man wearing glasses said, as he inspected the vial by her bed. “I’ve got a counter-agent to this painkiller. Jesus, how much of this did you take, woman?” She held up two fingers in response.
“No wonder,” the man wearing glasses said. He took a bag out, unzipped it, and reached in. Glass vials clicked against each other as he shifted his hand through the bag. The tinkling glass echoed through Maxine’s mind, crystalline. Her eyes fluttered closed and the stars, more intense this time, flew around her. Her heart filled with the joy of success and perfect wellbeing. She felt pressure on her arm. Opening her eyes, she looked down. The man wearing glasses had injected her with something.
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