Disturb

by Jack Kilborn

  But he hadn’t known true power until today.

  Firing people, hurting people, crippling them financially, all of that was child’s play.

  Murder was the ultimate rush.

  It made everything pale next to it, the feeling of taking someone’s life. Better than sex and money and drugs. Better even that the billions of dollars he’d earn with N-Som.

  His gun, a 9mm Sig-Sauer that he’d only previously used to shoot targets at firing ranges, felt like an extension of his body. Killing Halloran was just a taste. Shooting Manny and Carlos made him realize what an intoxicating addiction this had so quickly become.

  Now, crouched behind the counter in the lab, in an actual gun fight, Rothchilde felt like a god.

  He was caught completely by surprise when Theena jumped in front of him and fired.

  Missing.

  The bullet passed so close to his face he felt the breeze. The sound was thunderous, both terrifying and exhilarating. He sat there, transfixed, as Theena pulled the trigger again and again, the gun clicking harmlessly, her expression changing from anger, to confusion, to fear.

  The smile slithered across Rothchilde’s mouth like a snake.

  “Out of bullets?”

  Theena raised the gun to strike him with it, but she was a mere mortal. Rothchilde was a greater deity. He gave her a firm punch in the nose and she fell backwards, her black mane falling over her face when she landed.

  There was blood on his knuckles. Her blood. He anointed his forehead with it, and then stood up.

  “Come out, Dr. May. Or I kill her.”

  “Don’t do it, Bill!”

  Rothchilde reared his hand back to strike her. She stared at him defiantly, her jaw thrust outward, her eyebrows furrowed in anger. It turned him on a great deal.

  “Okay, Rothchilde. You win.”

  Bill stood up from behind the counter, his hands over his head. The look on his face was pure defeat. This was a man with no hope left.

  Delicious.

  He wanted to feel Bill’s fear, know his defeat at the hands of a superior male. A chest shot should do it. Or perhaps he should shoot his legs first, have him crawl around and beg for his life.

  Rothchilde brought the gun around.

  “No!”

  He glanced at Theena, amused.

  “Don’t tell me you have a little crush on Dr. May. I didn’t think you were capable of feelings.”

  “You kill him, I won’t help you.”

  “I think I’ll be able to convince you.”

  “I can’t make N-Som by myself, Albert. It’s a two person job.”

  Rothchilde hesitated. He knew nothing about the manufacturing process of drugs, and had no idea if she was lying of not. If he killed Bill now, he’d be able to relive the whole gun battle. But if Theena really needed two people…

  Rothchilde stared hard at Bill. Shooting him would be so sweet. He’d heard the term ‘itchy trigger finger’ in countless old westerns, and fully understood what it meant.

  “I can still push N-Som through CDER. You’d have approval in a few days.”

  The President of American Products frowned. He normally didn’t deny himself pleasure, but the hassle he’d save himself if the FDA accepted N-Som was greater than his bloodlust.

  “Fine.” He lowered the weapon, exercising his absolute self control. “I have a head in this bag. How many doses can you extract from it?”

  His little wench had gone submissive, pouting. “Ten to twelve.”

  That was perfect. Rothchilde could envision an N-Som cabinet next to his wine cellar, vintage Cabernets alongside the last thoughts of the dozens of people he would kill. Like a personal collection of snuff films that he alone could savor.

  “Get started. I don’t have all day.”

  He tossed the garbage bag to Theena. Her repulsion was priceless.

  Rothchilde sat in a chair and kept a bored eye on the doctors while they set Halloran’s head in a vice.

  They were all too busy to notice the EEG machine sitting on a table in the back.

  Manny’s EEG machine, scribbling down a continuous jagged line of Beta waves on an endless ream of paper.

  Jack Kilborn

  Disturb

  Manny opened his eyes to pain.

  It was an alarming experience. Not the pain-he was used to that. But the feeling of waking up. That was something he hadn’t done in a long time.

  He looked around and discovered he was in the lobby of the DruTech Building. There was blood all around him. When he tried to sit up, he realized the blood was his.

  “You don’t look so good.”

  David was staring at him, reflected in a chrome garbage can that had fallen over.

  It was one of those moments of instant clarity, like a fog lifting. All at once Manny understood.

  He only saw David when he looked in a mirror.

  Manny had seen David at Dr. O’Neil’s place. He’d gone there to warn the doctor, to tell him he had to hide. But David had gotten there first. The apartment looked like a slaughterhouse. David had been sitting on the sofa, eating a box of chalk.

  Manny had tasted chalk, too.

  He tried to remember prior conversations with David. They all involved a mirror of some kind. Through the vanity mirror in Townsend’s bathroom. In his bed back at DruTech, which faced a dresser with the oversized mirror. Was there a mirror at the hospital?

  “The window, next to your bed. You could see my reflection in there.”

  Manny stared at the garbage can.

  “I’m you.”

  “Don’t act so surprised. This is news to me, too.”

  “You’re not really my brother. You’re me.”

  “We’re two sides of the same coin, Manny. This is what I’ve been trying to tell you. This is what that drug has done to us.”

  Manny closed his eyes, tight as he could. He tried to remember the night of the banquet, when David killed Dr. Nikos. But the memory didn’t exist. He remembered going into the bathroom, seeing David, and then nothing else.

  “That memory is mine, Manny.” When David talked, it was like a speaker emanating from the middle of Manny’s head. “It’s like we’re two people, sharing one body. I have my thoughts, you have yours.”

  Manny began to shake, the tears streaming down the sides of his head.

  “How many people have we killed, David?”

  “Do you want to see?”

  He didn’t. God help him, he didn’t want to see.

  “I think I can show you the memories. They’re yours, too. We’re of one mind.”

  “Please, don’t.”

  The feeling was similar to deja vu, like suddenly remembering something that you’d known all along, but many times stronger. The memories flooded into his head all at once, overpowering him. He saw everything… Dr. Nikos… Dr. Townsend… Dr. Fletcher… please make it stop… Dr. O’Neil… Dr. Myrnowski… no more oh god there’s more… a big man with a gun… and then a smaller man, the ax chopping and chopping…

  Manny threw up. He watched David throw up as well.

  “How about Theena?”

  “She’s in the lab, downstairs. We were going to kill her, too. But we’ve been shot a few times.”

  Manny touched his chest and David let him see the shots, relive the experience. The small man, Dr. May, Albert Rothchilde…

  “We should be dead.”

  David agreed. “But we’re not. We can’t die. Not like before. I won’t die again like before.”

  Manny had been in gym class when the assistant principal pulled him aside, gave him the news that his older brother David had killed himself at the juvenile correctional institution. The institution he’d been sent to because Manny tattled on him.

  “You’re not really David. David’s dead.”

  “His body, yes. But your memories keep him alive. Your guilt made him grow. And the N-Som-well, you know what a bad deal that turned out to be.”

  Manny could remember his reaction
to David’s death. How he became withdrawn, violent. Almost as if he was filling the void created by his brother’s absence. Manny became the one who got into trouble all the time. Trouble that continued into adulthood with, arrest after arrest.

  But never murder.

  Manny bitterly laughed, the action causing the pain in his chest to flare.

  “I should have killed you when you asked.”

  “It’s too late now.”

  Manny shook his head. It wasn’t too late. The next chance he got, he was ending it.

  “Won’t work, Manny. First of all, we don’t die easily. But mostly, I won’t allow it.”

  “You won’t allow it? It’s my body.”

  The face reflected in the garbage can changed. At one moment, Manny was looking at David’s reflection. Then there was a shift, and he could sense that it was David who was looking at him.

  “I’m in control now, Manny. You follow my will.”

  Manny experienced a feeling of isolation, darkness. He tried to cry out, but he kept getting smaller and smaller, his vision dimming. His own mind was trapping him, shielding him from his own senses. He tried to scream, but nothing came out.

  A moment later, he was gone.

  David sat up. He could feel Manny inside him, struggling to free himself, like a tiny fly in a web.

  It was a strange experience, but an understandable one. The mind was a mysterious thing, but science was demystifying it a bit more every day. David knew enough to grasp what was happening to his.

  Memory is chemical. He could remember an early lecture from Dr. Nikos, talking about experiments with flatworms. They could be taught simple stimulus/response reactions, and these reactions could be passed on from Group A to Group B by feeding Group B the brains of Group A.

  In his free time, of which he had a lot, he’d read about the collective unconscious, and inherited memories known as archetypes. These were common in animals. How could horses walk minutes after birth? How did salmon know to travel upstream to spawn? It was called instinct, a genetic imprint passed on to offspring. A form of inherited memory.

  But it was so much more than memory. Every thought was a chemical reaction happening in the brain. Movement, speech, emotion, motor skills; these could all be removed with a scalpel or overridden by an electric probe.

  Even the personality was nothing more than a complicated exchange of neurotransmitters. Drugs can alter mood and control behavior. A blow to the head could turn a nice person into a permanent jerk, and a lobotomy could tame even the most savage psychotic.

  David was simply a result of complicated chemistry and brain damage. Every time he took N-Som, a residual amount stayed in his brain-a stockpile of other people’s neurotransmitters. It literally took root, changing his chemical structure, allowing Manny’s violent thoughts to grow until they’d taken over the core of his personality.

  A maniac is born.

  David sat up, ignoring the pain. He no longer needed thoughts of revenge to compel him to kill. The compulsion existed without logic; it was an emotional response. And David’s overriding emotion was hatred. He didn’t question it. He just went with the flow.

  David got to his feet, wobbling a bit. A coughing fit brought up quite a lot of blood. He took a few tentative steps until he was sure he could trust his legs.

  His ax was waiting for him, near the security desk.

  Then he headed for the emergency staircase.

  “A hunting we will go.”

  He was just opening the front door when he saw someone walk into the lobby.

  Jack Kilborn

  Disturb

  Special Agent Smith didn’t consider himself crooked.

  He’d entered the Bureau out of college, young and full of energy. The FBI had been his dream job. The pulse-pounding training he’d gotten at Quantico promised him a career filled with thrills and shoot-outs and manhunts and TV interviews.

  But real life conspired against him.

  He broke his ankle tripping down a flight of stairs just one week after graduation.

  Three operations later, Smith still didn’t have full use of his foot. He was assigned to the Chicago office, riding a desk. Smith had become a bureaucrat, which was a fate he’d been purposely trying to avoid when he joined the Feds in the first place.

  So he pushed papers for three long years, secretly jealous of the agents around him who saw action. Agents who actually got to draw their guns on the job. He debated the pros of drinking himself to death versus the cons of eating himself to death. It was during the mayor’s holiday party, while Smith was attempting to do both, that he met Albert Rothchilde.

  Smith knew from the start that he was being fleeced. Rothchilde was looking to buy a friend in the Bureau, and Smith was the perfect candidate; pathetic, angry, needy. The president of American Products pushed Smith’s buttons with the skill of a cult guru; asking questions, listening closely, offering praise and reassurance.

  Rothchilde sent him Cuban cigars, expensive wine, concert tickets, high priced call girls. He invited him to the country club, took him golfing, let him use his condo in Florida for vacation. Smith was courted by Rothchilde for almost two months before the man asked him for a tiny favor-some information on organized crime that only the FBI was privy to.

  Smith provided the info. Not because he felt he owed Rothchilde for his kindness, or because he was under the spell of his Svengali-like manipulation. Smith did it for a single, selfish reason; it was exciting.

  Being bribed to steal FBI documents was a thrill, like being a double agent. The extra money was nice, but Smith would have done it for free. The more outrageous Rothchilde’s request, the more fun Smith had figuring out how to pull it off.

  What began as simply buying information had become much more dangerous. Smith routinely sent agents out into the field to secretly run Rothchilde’s errands. Only Smith knew the true reasons behind the missions, and he’d climbed high enough within the Bureau to be able to cover his own tracks.

  It was like a chess game. Smith stopped drinking, lost weight, and actually began to enjoy work again.

  But everything in the past paled next to that moment, the moment Smith entered the DruTech Building.

  This wasn’t just stealing files and sending agents on fake missions. This was the real deal. Smith was actually in the field himself. When he saw Rothchilde’s chopper outside, he got even more excited. His mind filled with fantastic scenarios, saving Rothchilde in a hostage situation, neutralizing the targets, being able to actually shoot somebody.

  Smith couldn’t run the hundred in less than thirty seconds, but for the very first time he felt like a real Fed.

  He scanned the lobby, overhead, then at eye-level, and finally sweeping the ground. His pulse broke into a rumba when he saw the guard’s body. Smith moved in for a closer look, favoring his good leg. He wanted to shout out in excitement when he saw the head wound.

  This was it, what he’d waited his whole life for. Real danger. He knelt down next to the corpse and felt for its pulse, knowing he wouldn’t find one, doing it anyway because that was what they always did in the movies. He could imagine telling this story later, people hanging on his every word.

  “He’s dead.”

  Smith spun, knees bent in a crouch, both hands on his weapon in a perfect Weaver stance. Just like he’d practiced a hundred times. But none of his training prepared Smith for what was standing fifteen feet away from him.

  At first, he thought he was looking at a corpse. The man was caked with dried blood, which seemed to streak out of the four bullet wounds in his torso like fireworks. Any one of those wounds should have been fatal, but the guy was standing there, obviously alive, with a goofy grin on his face. And an ax.

  Smith went by-the-book. “Drop the ax! Hands on your head, get down on your knees!”

  The man lifted his hands above his head, but he raised the ax with them.

  “Drop the ax!”

  The man didn’t drop the ax. He did so
mething that Special Agent Smith wouldn’t have ever expected. He held it like a lumberjack and threw it.

  Smith’s reflexes took over. If he were a seasoned pro with plenty of field experience, perhaps his first instinct would have been to fire the gun. But since he wasn’t, Smith did what anyone would have done when an ax came at them. He put his arms over his face and ducked.

  The ax handle hit him across the forearms, sending his gun flying.

  Smith got up out of his crouch and was seized by an overwhelming feeling of giddy delight. He’d been absolutely sure that the ax was going to bury itself in his head. The fact that he’d escaped with only bruised elbows was amazing.

  But it wasn’t over yet.

  The bloody man was walking towards him, his arms wide open. Like a giant bird of prey, swooping down.

  Smith knew he needed to find the gun, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the spectacle before him. When he returned to his senses, it was too late. All he could do was run.

  But Smith and running weren’t good buddies.

  He took off through the lobby in a comical hobble, his bad ankle unable to fully bear the weight of his body even after all of the therapy. It was like trying to run with a ball and chain on his leg. Smith pushed past the pain of bones rubbing against each other, but it just didn’t work right.

  He chanced a look over his shoulder and saw the bloody man following in a brisk walk. Not even running, but quickly gaining ground. He’d picked up the ax.

  Ahead of Smith was a dark hallway, doors at the end. He was sweating now, fear and pain pushing out his prior thoughts of glory and excitement.

  “What’s wrong with your leg?”

  Smith concentrated on the doors. If he could just make it there, maybe he could lock them somehow, keep the bloody man away. It wasn’t that far. Smith forced himself to move faster, ignoring the fire in his ankle, pushing himself harder than he ever had in his life.

  He made it! The bloody man was only a few steps behind him now, and Smith grabbed the door handle, turning it, pushing forward with his shoulder.

  Locked.

  But it wasn’t over yet. He still had his training. Hand to hand combat. Martial arts. He hadn’t practiced regularly, because there hadn’t been a need. But he still knew enough to defend himself, even if his opponent did have an ax.