by M. C. Norris
“What in the heck?” she whispered, glaring back down at her phone, while her fitful right knee was chugging away. She retried her mom, and for the umpteenth time, the call went to voicemail. She’d already left two messages. It made no sense to leave anymore. Something was wrong.
Jill slapped her phone face down on the surface of what used to be her working space, and left her seat for a window that offered a better view of the airstrip. Navy vehicles had surrounded the captured sub an hour ago, and SEAL units were sent in. The whole base was on lockdown until the sub was cleared. The search had already taken quite a while, but a few of the soldiers were starting to emerge. They were gesturing and shouting. A unit of medics pushed through the positioned ranks of vehicles, sailors, and sharpshooters. A couple of collapsible gurneys were rushed to the front lines. The medics set them up in a matter of seconds, and wheeled them right up to the submarine.
“What’s going on up there?” Jill said, shouting in the direction of the cockpit. “Any word on when we’re going to take off?” There came no reply through the reinforced partition. The pilot hadn’t attempted to communicate with her at all since she’d boarded the aircraft, if there was even a pilot up there at all. It was possible that one hadn’t yet been assigned to her discharge. Commander Bent had agreed so easily to her request for release from the Psyjack team that the initial wave of relief began to gather in the pit of her stomach like a wad of darkness. Something felt wrong.
Down on the airstrip, the two gurneys rolled away from the sub. Gunners flanked them, waving back the small crowd. There was a body strapped onto each of them. Both were covered with white sheets. By the manner in which they were enshrouded, she might’ve guessed that the captives were dead, if not for the urgent manner in which the armed SEALs were escorting the medics through the crowd. The sense of urgency was almost palpable. Jill watched the reactions of her former teammates as the two gurneys rolled past them to a waiting ambulance. She saw Takashi smack J.J. with a high-five. Skyler seized Collin in a celebratory embrace. As they twirled in each other’s arms, Jill’s smile fell.
It wasn’t that she had feelings for Collin, and it wasn’t that she disliked Skyler. It just felt wrong to see everyone celebrating without her. It should’ve been her down there slapping high-fives, embracing her teammates in a fit of joy. Skyler had only known them for a short time. Jill had been working with those three guys since their college days, back in Glasgow. Together, they’d built the program from the ground up.
Jill walked over the cockpit, and drummed her fist against the partition door. “Is anybody in there?” After a moment with no reply, she stomped back over to her phone, dropped back into her seat, and swiped the screen to bring the sleeping device back to life. With an annoyed flick of her thumb, she pulled open her favorite news app. The top drone feeds were being loaded. She could only imagine the bizarre story of a piratical sub being captured by some kind of friendly monster, who delivered it to the Allied Navy’s front doorstep. With Commander Bent blocking every step of their progress, it was anybody’s guess if the world would ever know the truth about what had just happened in Shanghai.
The top news headline blazed boldly before her eyes. Already shaking, as though every drop of blood sugar had just been leeched from her body, she raised the screen closer to her quavering eyes. Each piece of what she’d failed to see as being one terrible puzzle crashed at once into place. The real reason why the Navy was detaining her, and her mom’s failure to answer her phone was all explained in a single image. Jill gaped in horror at the black columns of smoke billowing from a ruined skyline to the mountain peaks. Anchorage was burning in the midnight sun.
***
The hospital triage room was a riot of activity. Paramedics swarmed the covered bodies strapped to the gurneys. Medical equipment was wheeled into place. Cables were connected, power switches flipped. Overhead lights blazed to life, one by one, as they were dragged down from the ceiling on articulated armatures to illuminate the examination area in a harsh white light.
Skyler clung to Collin’s arm. She was knotting the fabric of his flight suit in her grip. Despite the whirlwind of commotion, she couldn’t break her stare from the tattooed arm of one of the recovered pirates. It dangled out from beneath the shroud that covered his body. She studied the tormented artwork of his tattoos, the webs of scars and burn pocks that marred his forearm and hand, and those latent terrors of her past from which she’d fought so hard to recover were ripped back open like poorly stitched wounds. Just the sight of that man’s arm was enough to assure Skyler that her so-called recovery was nothing but a joke that she’d been playing on herself. Part of her remained forever crippled and cowering in that lake of blood and champagne, clutching the bag of canisters to her chest, and staring up into the face of the demon.
One of the paramedics grabbed the upper edge of the sheet, and began peeling it back. His whole body gave an involuntary jerk when the face beneath was exposed. The fabric fell from his fingertips, and he stepped back from the thing on the gurney. All activity in the triage room came to a halt. All eyes were affixed on the twisted face that leered back at them from behind a mask of taut wires.
“Good God almighty,” someone whispered.
“That’s him,” Skyler heard herself say, in a shrill and breaking voice that she hardly recognized as being her own. She clung to Collin’s jacket as though she were dangling over a cliff. “He’s the one who attacked us.” She pointed an accusatory finger at the demon. “He was there.”
A couple of the medics eyed her, and then turned away. It took Skyler a few seconds to realize that no one in the room but Collin probably had any idea what she was talking about, and that realization made her feel more alone in her trauma than ever. She lifted her cane from the floor, and pressed the cold, titanium crook to her upper lip. It was a slender thing to try and hide behind, but apart from Collin, it was her only defense.
“They found these two trapped in one of the upper compartments,” one of the medics said. “Probably the last pocket of air in the whole submarine.”
“If the compartment wasn’t flooded, then what exactly is the matter with them? Why are they unresponsive?”
While the medics discussed the likelihood of gases as being the reason for their patients’ incoherence, they plunged an I.V. into the bend of the tattooed arm, and attached sensor pads to his chest. Military intelligence officers hovering on the outskirts reached right into the heart of the chaos to wave their phones over the sleeping pirate’s face. One by one, they retracted their devices, and frowned down at their screens. Facial recognition scans weren’t coming up with a match, probably due to the apparatus stretched around the pirate’s head. There was some speculation over why he wore the horrible contraption, and disguising his identity seemed to be the consensus. Skyler felt like a hovering phantom trapped just outside of the moment, unable to warn these people of how dangerous this man was, unable to scream.
Officers murmured, examining each other’s phones, as they sidled over to the second gurney, where the substantially larger captive still remained uncovered. Skyler couldn’t stop staring at that face. It was the same face that had haunted her nightmares for two years following the attack. She could still feel the burning agony in her pulverized legs. She could hear the roar-grunts of those leashed baboons, the scrape of their claws against steel, and the ringing of their tightening chains as they lunged with flashing fangs. The demon was laughing, as though the situation struck him as being funny. He wanted to watch her being eaten.
Skyler closed her eyes, trembling, and gripped her cane until her knuckles turned white as hail stones. It made her feel all cold inside when she recalled those chain links slipping one by one through the demon’s hands. He relaxed his grip with every lunge of his beasts, releasing just a little more slack each time his killer apes forced themselves nearer, ringlet by ringlet, until at last their fangs plunged into her flesh, and their shaggy heads thrashed from side to side.
“We’ve got an ID match.”
Skyler’s eyes snapped over to the second gurney. The intelligence officers had drawn back the sheet. They were examining the results of the scans on their phones. Their faces were brightening. Skyler was relieved to see that her personal demon’s larger companion was not half so horrifying to look upon. Silver teeth shone from his broad Mongolian face, inset with a striking pair of emerald eyes.
“What the hell is that thing in his throat?” One officer leaned down over the body, wrinkling his nose. “Looks like a broken pen jammed in there.”
“It is.”
“Do you have any idea who we’ve got here, gentlemen?” Another officer held up his phone, allowing his question to hang dramatically in the air for several seconds before revealing the answer. “Meet Maxim Volkov, a.k.a. the Moscow Mongol. Name ring a bell to anyone? Hmm? No big deal. Just the damned leader of the Red Brotherhood.”
Skyler was taken aback by the amount of credit that the Navy was already poised to snatch. It would be a wonder if Psyjack received any recognition at all, when it was they who had delivered the pirates single-handedly into military custody. However, it still felt as though the collateral damage they’d caused might be punishable, if they were ever to admit to their involvement. It didn’t seem fair. The officers’ faces split into wide smiles. At once, the triage room resounded with whoops and clapping hands.
“We’ve got vitals,” a medic said, glancing at a heart monitor. “Pretty weak, but I see no reason why he wouldn’t pull through. Still need to check for internal injuries.”
“What about the other one? The one with the—face?” The officer made a clawing gesture at his own grimace.
“Vitals are strong, but he’s unresponsive. Comatose.” The medic straightened up, and looked around the crowded room, hands outstretched. “Alright, everybody. I appreciate you being here, but now I’m going to have to ask that all non-medical personal please clear the area. Congratulations on catching the bad guys. Please exit the triage room, stat.”
The officers filed past Skyler and Collin without casting so much as a glance in their direction. They were jabbering excitedly, slapping each other’s backs, already scheming about exploiting their new prize as some sort of a political bargaining chip. Regardless of how powerful and connected that man might be, Skyler’s attention remained devoted to the twisted face in the web of wires. Although he did appear to be comatose, Skyler couldn’t help but suspect trickery. The demon could be playing opossum, just lying in wait for an opportune moment to strike out like a viper at someone within his reach. A crop of goosebumps prickled her arms. She nearly jumped out of her own skin when her phone vibrated noisily in her pocket.
“We’d better clear out of here,” Collin said, nudging her with an elbow. He removed the Mindbender Rift still strapped atop his sweaty head, and he tucked it beneath his arm. His hair was slicked against his scalp. “I’m afraid that while all these guys are celebrating, we’ve got a pretty long afternoon ahead, getting our butts chewed by the Mad Hatter.”
She nodded, turning warily on a heel, reluctant to break her watch over the slumbering monster until her legs were in motion. Once she’d taken her first step toward the door, she felt an impulse to run screaming out of the hospital. Facing her attacker seemed like an important step toward restoring some part of her sanity, if nothing else. If there was such a thing as a complete recovery from what she’d suffered, then exposure to the source of her trauma was going to be a significant part of the process. She was grateful toward the paramedics for admitting her and Collin, and she thanked them on the way out the door. The other two guys hadn’t been quite so lucky. J.J. and Takashi had lagged too far behind, and they were forced to wait outside the hospital with the dog. Skyler’s phone gave another startling buzz. She withdrew the stupid thing from her pocket, tempted to pitch it right into the trash, but when she saw what was on the screen, she halted dead in her tracks.
“What?” Collin said, gazing back, when he realized that she was no longer walking beside him.
Skyler furrowed her brow. The notification had come from her iFly app. She’d almost forgotten about that search for Captain Roswell. A message was pending from RACHEL-1023, the drone she’d sent scouring the Barrier Reef base. Looked as though the search had been a success. Roswell’s unmistakable visage was captured in a little thumbnail image in the upper corner of her screen. However, there was something wrong with his face.
“What is it?” Collin’s arms dangled at his sides. “Something wrong?”
Medical personnel flowed around her, bumping into her shoulders. Collin approached her, and pulled her gently to the side of the hallway. Skyler tapped her thumb against the pending notification to receive the details. Roswell’s image leapt upon her screen, and Skyler nearly dropped the phone. The messenger drone’s feed depicted him sprawled on his office floor, just behind his desk. Dark blood streamed from a gaping hole in the center of his forehead. Captain Roswell was not coming to Shanghai to straighten everything out for his team. Captain Roswell was dead.
Skyler covered her mouth, pressing the phone against her chest to prevent anyone passing by from catching a glimpse of the horror depicted on her screen. Collin had seen it. She knew he’d seen it by his stunned expression, but he didn’t appear to be any more capable than she was at verbalizing whatever emotions were flooding his head. Collin was frowning at her, chest heaving, searching her face for any sign of deceit, as if he were clinging to some inane hope that she’d somehow doctored up a photo of Roswell’s murder as some sort of a prank.
“What was that?” he finally asked.
She shook her head, shooting him a wild-eyed glance.
“What do we do? Get the others?”
“Wait,” Skyler replied, holding him at bay with an extended index finger. She took a few steps away from him, in order to think more clearly. She felt faint. Her heart was drumming in her ears. Someone had found a reason to murder Roswell. That much was obvious. The looming question was whether he’d been killed over something unrelated, something personal perhaps, or if he’d been assassinated because of his affiliation with the Psyjack program. If the latter turned out to be the case, then all of their lives were in grave danger.
Skyler turned back to Collin. “We need to get out of here.”
“Out of the hospital?”
“No. Off of this base. Out of Shanghai. Right now.” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “I think we’re in serious trouble.”
“Why? We were just doing our jobs.”
“Collin, think about the size of military contracts for conventional weapons, and then consider the impact that Psyjack has on those contracts.” Skyler gaped into his stricken eyes. “See what’s happening, right now? Somebody with a whole lot of money wants us dead.”
“We need to warn the others.”
“Jill …” Skyler covered her mouth.
“What? What about her?”
“She’s already been separated from the rest of us. She’s the easiest target.”
“I thought they were sending her back home.”
“The Devil Ray is still sitting right out there on the tarmac.”
“I’ll text her.” Collin withdrew his phone.
“No.” Skyler grabbed his hand. “What do you think you’re going to say? You can’t tell her anything.”
“I have to warn her.”
“No!” Skyler spoke through gritted teeth. “Don’t you get it? We’re being watched right now. Every message. Every text. If they learn that we know what’s going on, we’ll be dead before we ever get off this base.”
“Jill could be in trouble right now.”
“Jill could be dead right now.”
Collin frowned, staring past her toward the hospital doors. His expression darkened. In an instant, he’d brushed right past her, and he was marching toward the front of the building.
“What are you doing?” Skyler had to run to catch up to him. She thought perhaps she
’d offended him with her attitude of self-preservation, until she saw what was standing just on the opposite side of the glass doors. It was Collin’s beloved dog, Hotspot, barking maniacally outside the hospital. The animal’s fur was smeared with blood.
Chapter Thirteen
“Wait,” Skyler said, her voice lowered to a growl. She seized Collin by the sleeve of his jacket, and reared him to an awkward halt. A few medical staff members eyed them with an aspect of unease. She could only glare imploringly into Collin’s eyes. Outside, the bloody dog licked its chops, sat down on its haunches, and gazed back over its shoulder.
“I’m not leaving my dog.”
“I’m not asking you to leave your dog.” Skyler narrowed her eyes into slits. “I’m just asking you to talk with me for just a minute before you step outside, and go marching right out into plain sight.”
She knew that Collin would never abandon Hotspot, but she was also aware that walking around the naval base with a large animal covered in blood was going to invite the same sort of unwanted attention that it looked like J.J. and Takashi might have already attracted. Skyler stared at all of the blood on the animal’s fur, and she felt like she was going to vomit. The reality of the situation hit her like a cement truck falling from the sky. The worst had already happened. J.J. and Takashi might be dead. Jill might dead. She and Collin might be the only two left.
“Alright,” Collin replied, as though he sensed that she was starting to come unraveled. As he glanced back at his gory dog, the dreadful realization sucked all of the color from his face. When he took her hand, his was trembling.