Phaze

by S. C. Mitchell

  Quantum physics wasn’t one of Kayla’s strongest subjects. Still, she needed to understand. “So, dumb it down a bit for me?”

  Mary jumped in. “We think certain atoms in your body, what we’re calling anchor atoms, stay here in our dimension while the bulk of your body part shifts to that other dimension. These anchor atoms are wide enough apart to pass between the atoms of the granite. That’s why you felt that stickiness. It’s actually micro-gravitational pull on the atomic level.”

  Heather rose, taking her mug and Kayla’s toward the kitchen. “After passing through, when the anchor atoms detect enough room for the rest of your body part, they call it back from wherever it’s been sent. Possibly one atom at a time.”

  As she passed, Mary shook her head, covering her cup with her hand. “I’ve had enough coffee, thanks.”

  Okay, so most of her body mass shifts to some other dimension leaving behind only a few atoms. Atoms small enough to pass between the atoms of the granite.

  Concepts started to fall into place. “Is there any way to identify these anchor atoms?” Kayla held her hand up in front of her face and wiggled her fingers, scrutinizing the digits.

  “We’re still running some of the data through a program I created on the Cray.” Heather presented her mug, now refilled and steaming. “Here.”

  Yeah, she needed that first. The earthy aroma filled her senses. The steamy, bitter wonderfulness brought warmth and comfort, but also focus.

  Mary leaned back in her chair. “About two hours until the data dump. We’ll filter and send you the results as soon as we have any.”

  Heather raised an eyebrow. “Any ideas for a costume design? I mean, provided we can figure out how to keep one on you?”

  “Why would I need a costume?”

  “Come on.” Heather locked her gaze. “You’re one of them now. A freakin’ superhero. You can walk through walls, for crying out loud. And it’s about time women got a representative on Xi Force.”

  ~ ~ ~

  “Ten dead.” Joel knelt by the bedside.

  The six downstairs had been shot when Homeland Security stormed the building. The Ghaim thugs refused to surrender, returned fire, and paid the price. But the four bodies up here had Joel’s head in what-the-fuck land.

  Two women, two men, with not a scratch on them. No indication that they were even dead except for the fact they weren’t breathing.

  Shackled to the beds, their hands were fisted tight, arm muscles locked, pulling at the restraints. Eyes wide open on all four. Three also had their mouths open, as if their final utterance had been an agonizing scream. Even in death, their muscles remained rigid.

  Medical equipment lined the walls. Monitors on wheeled carts, syringes at the ready on trays, a couple stethoscopes.

  Almost as disturbing, the fifth bed. Linens mussed and bloody, shackles ripped from where they’d been secured to the bed frame, it hinted at a grisly story.

  What was going on? How had they died? And why?

  He stomped back downstairs to where Aaron and Chris waited with the Homeland Security taskforce. Brad Fergus, the HS commander, threw up his hands after one look, and gladly conceded the crime scene to the FBI. “Aaron, head to the nearest hospital and prep it for delivery of those bodies upstairs. I want full autopsies on all of them.”

  Aaron nodded and left.

  “The rest of you fan out. Check the building and grounds. Everything but the room I just locked upstairs.” He’d sent for the FBI’s top forensics team to study that room. If anyone could figure out what Ghaim had been doing up there, they could.

  “Anything you find out of the ordinary, bag and tag. If you find anyone lurking about, bring them to me.” Theoretically, he could use his internal monitoring like a lie detector, though he’d never had a chance to test that application.

  The Homeland Security team dispersed. Most headed outside, but a couple went upstairs to check the other rooms.

  “Chris, turn on your scanning program and scan the house. Walls, floors, ceilings. Look for secret compartments, chambers, whatever.”

  “Gotcha, boss.” Chris did a slow turn in the main room.

  A commanding voice filtered in from outside. “Federal agents. Put your hands up.”

  They’d found someone lurking outside already?

  Dumph. Then stealthy footsteps above.

  Chris cocked his head. “Did you hear that?”

  Only someone with the enhanced hearing of a zombiebot would have.

  “Upstairs.” Joel sprinted for the steps, Chris at his heels.

  They were met at the top of the stairs by HS Agent Marc Lang. “Sir, it appears this building is wired to explode.”

  Joel hit the button to wide-broadcast on his comlink to the Homeland Security forces. “Everyone out of the building. Now! Get as far away as you can.”

  Click. Tick. Tick.

  “They’re trying to destroy the evidence.” Joel continued up the stairs. “I need at least one of those bodies up here intact.”

  “I’ll try and defuse the bomb. You go grab one of those bodies just in case.” Chris bolted to the left at the top of the stairs toward the sound of the ticking.

  Good call. Chris had better computer and mechanical expertise.

  Joel switched to thermal scanning. A warm signature radiated from the room to the right. The room that held the bodies. The room he’d just left empty and locked.

  No time to fiddle with the lock and key. He bashed his way through. Hardwood gave reluctantly and the paneled door exploded into pieces.

  Beyond a dark-clad figure spun his way. “We meet again, Z-Bot.”

  “I’m Shade.” Didn’t the idiot even notice that their costumes were different?

  The man shrugged. “Whoever.”

  Dumph.

  Then he was gone.

  Chris yelled from the other room. “Not enough time. It’s going to—”

  The building exploded around him. Shrapnel tore through his costume and skin to bounce off the titanium weave underneath. Joel fell as the floor beneath him disintegrated to splinters. He hit hard below and debris rained down on him.

  Something hit his head hard. His mind swirled toward unconsciousness.

  He switched mental processing to his internal computer, allowing the processor to take over his actions if he passed out.

  Core: Circuit overload.

  Shit. This was not the time to reboot.

  Chapter 6

  Confined in complete darkness, buried in the building’s wreckage, Joel’s computer waited for thermal scanning to come online before attempting to move his body. Mental processing finished rebooting, but this unit’s brain was still unconscious, possibly concussed. Logic and computational functions were online, but no intuition, so it needed to assess its next moves logically or wait for mental capacity to be restored.

  Debris shifted above. A thick wooden beam lifted off the body and illumination poured into the space. Ocular units registered vision.

  Above, Christopher Johnson, designation Z-Bot, shoved the beam to the side. “Are you all right?”

  “I am functioning,” was the proper response.

  “Shit, Joel, hang in there.” Christopher Johnson connected to him over their satcom VPN. Joel’s computer acknowledged the login and password and passed administrative rights to the user.

  The user began a scan that filtered through Joel’s circuits and biological connections, boosting signals and repairing links. His vision blurred for two-point-three seconds as a cephalalgia became prominent at the center of his frontal lobe.

  Then consciousness returned to Joel, like waking from a bad dream. A sharp throbbing behind his eyes drew tears as the computer filled the gap in his memories of the past few moments.

 
That was one hell of an explosion.

  Joel clasped the extended hand.

  “Let’s try this again.” Chris captured his gaze. “Are you all right?”

  He sighed. “I’ve been better.”

  Nodding, Chris pulled him to his feet. “That’s what I wanted to hear. Welcome back.”

  “How bad is it?” He was scared to look.

  “Warning came in time. We didn’t lose anyone. But three are on their way to the hospital.” Chris shrugged. “Two more should be, but you’re going to have to order them. They don’t listen to me.”

  That was about right. Some of these agents would rather drop in the field than admit they needed to go get some help. Admirable, but only to a point.

  Chris looked like hell. Costume shredded to almost indecent levels. Titanium weave showed through large patches of missing skin. Half his face gone.

  Looking down, Joel assessed he wasn’t in any better condition.

  “How are we?” Not that it mattered. They were both alive. The skin would grow back. They had extra costumes in the Xi-1.

  “We’re both in need of a little maintenance.”

  A short distance away an arm protruded from the rubble. Not one of the Homeland agents, so it had to be one of the bodies from upstairs. Maybe something could be salvaged after all.

  “Help me dig this out.” Joel started moving rubble.

  With every piece of debris moved, a knot twisted tighter in his stomach.

  “I don’t fucking believe this.” Chris took a step back after they’d unearthed the whole body.

  Not one scratch marred the skin. No wounds, no punctures. After surviving an explosion that took down a building, this body remained in pristine condition.

  What? The? Hell?

  ~ ~ ~

  Kayla checked the feed strength of the incoming call. The signal showed plenty of bandwidth for video. “Why don’t you have your camera on?”

  She wanted to see his face.

  Joel’s voice held a note of fatigue. “You really don’t want to see me right now.”

  That didn’t sound good.

  “Did you lose anyone?”

  His tone lightened. “No, the Homeland team’s fine, though we had a close shave, and my face is messed up.”

  Relief washed through her. His handsome face would repair itself.

  “But I’ve got a little gift. I’m sending you some corpses.”

  “Lucky me. Most girls just get flowers and candy.” Kayla bit her lip. Was that pushing it? Best to keep to business. “Whose corpses?”

  “Four John and Jane Doe’s. I want Heather and Mary to perform full autopsies.”

  Then why had he called her?

  A curious thrill fluttered through her stomach. He’d wanted to talk to her.

  “I’ll take care of it on this end. Anything else?” This wasn’t even proper chain of command. Something felt off.

  “Um . . . yeah.” He hesitated. “I just wanted to make sure you were all right. I left pretty quickly and didn’t have time to check in with you after . . . that . . . thing.”

  Her walking through a wall or that kiss? The rat was purposefully being obtuse.

  “I’m fine.” Two could play that game.

  She tried to force the camera link. If she could see his face, his eyes . . .

  But he canceled it on the other end. “You really don’t want to see me like this. I took an explosion to the face. It’s not pretty, but the skin is growing back. I have a few things to finish up out here in the field, so those bodies should hit there before I get back.”

  He sounded tired again.

  “I’ll make sure they get right to Heather’s lab,” she said. “You take care.”

  “I will. When I get back, we need to talk.”

  Ya think? Maybe he needed to change his superhero name to Captain Obvious.

  ~ ~ ~

  Joel secured the area around the explosion, sent the bodies off to Xi Force Headquarters, and checked in with the men at the hospital. Only minor injuries. Most would be out before the end of the day.

  Aaron acquired a hotel room for him and Chris. He wasn’t about to walk into a hotel lobby without a face, but required a little down time before the next phase of the operation.

  After a few hours rest and a long hot shower, he assessed the damage in the bathroom’s full-length mirror. Most of the flesh on his face had filled in, yet remained pink and puffy. Facial skin did tend to regrow at a faster rate than other areas, thank goodness.

  He held an errant flap of loose skin against the titanium weave of his chest, hoping it would adhere. It either would, or turn gray and drop off as newer pink skin replaced it. Funny how he’d become so used to the impossibilities of his new body.

  His right side at the waist, upper arm, and thigh still had a number of missing patches, but new skin crawled across the exposed weave.

  His new uniform hung on the door where he’d put it before his shower. It would cover most of the ugliness. Time to suit up and get back to work. He wanted to check on Jonathan Wylde’s cabin and his pack before heading back to Xi Force Headquarters.

  And Kayla.

  Yeah, they needed that talk.

  If, beyond his wildest dreams, she really did have feelings for him, if her flirting hadn’t been just in fun, he certainly welcomed the opportunity to get closer to her, but she needed to know what she was letting herself in for.

  After the whole Amber shit-storm, he’d locked away a lot of those images, experiences, and emotions. Amber forced him to do terrible, violent things. She’d also taken him down some dark sexual pathways. Nothing was off limits to her. She’d turned him into a monster.

  Inside, Joel felt damaged beyond repair. Sure, his flesh could mend itself, but could his psyche? Was he even capable of having any kind of normal relationship?

  His therapist called it an extreme case of post-traumatic stress disorder. With everything going on right now, he probably needed to schedule another therapy session or two. In any case, Kayla needed to understand just how broken he was.

  ~ ~ ~

  Pike’s Rangers offloaded the four body-bags from the chopper as soon as it landed. Kayla directed them to Heather’s lab.

  She hung back. Chills crept up her spine. Had it only been a month ago she’d watched friends and coworkers carted out of this bullet-torn building in body-bags?

  Right there.

  The shaded corner by the north doorway drew her gaze. Laurence Jones died there, bled out right in her arms as she tried to staunch the flow. The wall had been repaired, the floor sanitized of the blood, but the image of Laurence’s dead eyes was burned into her soul.

  She stopped and let the sorrow wash over her. Moisture rimmed her eyes.

  He’d been an accountant. Didn’t have a gun or even know how to use one. That hadn’t stopped Ghaim agents from riddling his body with bullets.

  She hadn’t known how to use a firearm then either. She did now. Her hand crept to the Glock holstered beside her breast. Her Glock. She loved, hated, and respected the weapon all at the same time. No one would ever shoot at her again without her returning fire.

  The elevator bell dinged, pulling her from her reverie. Pike’s Rangers were back, sans body-bags.

  As the rangers passed by her, their commander, Jason Pike, stopped beside her. He’d been here that day as well, but he and his men arrived too late to save Laurence and so many of the others. “You okay?”

  No. Never.

  She sniffed back the tears. “Yeah. I’m fine.”

  Jason took the time, those days after the incident, to show her how to handle a firearm down in the basement shooting range. He’d suggested the Glock as a good match for her, and walked her through each step. Loadin
g, cleaning, aiming, firing.

  Everyone called him Yoda, because he always trained people. He rode his men hard, and they loved him for it. He’d been easier on her.

  “Don’t mourn Laurence. Use his memory to fuel your survival instincts.”

  She hadn’t really known Laurence. The longest she’d ever talked to him was when he fought for his life right here. When his voice went silent and his eyes rolled up, something inside her died as well.

  Chapter 7

  The small cabin on the snow-capped mountain offered an idyllic wilderness scene. Well, idyllic with the exception of the blood-stained, boot-tramped snow, and dark figures lying on it.

  The Xi-1 hovered over the mountaintop. The only occupants, Joel, Chris, and their pilot, Air Force Colonel, Maggie O’Donnell.

  At Joel’s direction, Maggie landed the craft a ways away from the building. He didn’t want to disrupt the scene or destroy any evidence or clues. A clearing a couple hundred yards away from the cabin offered enough space.

  She executed the tricky landing flawlessly, setting them down gently on the slightly sloped mountainside.

  A chill coursed through Joel’s gut when Aaron introduced him to the new Xi-1 pilot. Long, curly auburn hair and green eyes, so similar to Amber’s, his stomach instantly knotted.

  But Maggie’s serious expression and no-nonsense, by-the-book demeanor soon won him over. That and her lilting Irish brogue. She was nothing like Amber despite the hair and eyes. And she flew the Xi-1 like one born to it.

  “Stay here, and keep the Xi-1ready for takeoff,” Joel instructed Maggie. “And keep the door shut after we leave.”

  She nodded, never taking her eyes off her instruments. “Aye, sir.”

  They were intruders here. Wylde’s pack wasn’t all that friendly to strangers. True, they might not see Joel as a friend either, even though he’d been here numerous times to see Wylde, but Maggie didn’t have titanium under her skin to stop a wolf bite.