by Ryan Burnett
Rob and I circled around the building twice before I managed to spot what I had been looking for. On the west side of the building I found a second story window with enough room between the hinges and the latch on the bottom of the window frame for me to pry a knife in there and force it open. I motioned to Rob so he could watch and make sure that no one rounded the corner to the rear of the building and saw us as I proceeded to climb up. It was a fairly easy accent with plenty of handholds. Balancing on the window ledge (which was just big enough to give me a somewhat decent footing) wasn’t too tricky and there didn’t seem to be much of a breeze in the air. The hardest part was keeping my perch while applying enough pressure to pry the window itself open but a few tense minutes of efforts led me to success. As I scrambling inside I kept my ears perked but there were no audible alarms that I could detect. The only thing I could really hear was the noise of machines that was emanating from all around the room. I ignored it for the time being and called out to Rob. The next few minutes were spent with me reaching down trying to catch Rob's hand as he jumped, and then followed the laborious process of hauling my bulky friend into the room itself.
After we took a brief pause to recoup ourselves Rob and I began to survey the interior of the room that we had broken into. The room was bare of any décor or furniture and was instead filled with row upon row of giant processors. The hum that the large racks of machines were making reminded me of some kind a reactor due to their sheer depth and intensity. “How much money do you think is spent to get processing power like this?” I asked. “Hell if I know man, I am more curious as to what a Rehabilitation center would even need with it” Rob replied. I laughed “You can't seriously think this is still a rehabilitation center can you?” Rob grinned at me “About as much as I think I'm your bodyguard, detective Marcus”.
We found an exit on the far side of the room. The door led to a narrow hallway containing one other room and a set of stairs leading downwards. A quick check informed Rob and I that the other room was electronically locked and so we elected to take the stairs to the lower floor. The interior of the front lobby contained a desk free of any papers or computer equipment. Sitting on top of the desk counter was a plain white keycard tied to a blue lanyard. I snagged the keycard that uneasy and suspicious feeling that had been plaguing me prowling beneath the surface fiercer and more noticeable than ever before. Never the less we had come this far and so we started to test the card on any door that we could find.
The card opened every single door we tried on the first floor and judging solely by what we found there the building did almost did seem like a building meant for rehabilitation ….although it seemed like it was somehow meant for the rehabilitation of one individual. There was a single dormitory like room with a single bed and nightstand. The dormitory had an attached closet on one side and on the other side a padded room. There was also a gymnasium area with an attached shower. Overall it was a pretty nice setup but the lack of any other sleeping quarters was really puzzling. Most of the exercise and medical equipment seemed barely used and the dormitory seemed practically unlived in. The bed was perfectly made and there was no debris in the wastebasket. With no clues to be found downstairs we decided to move on and return upstairs.
We returned to the door that had been locked before and scanned the key card and I was surprised to hear a hissing sound as the doors automatically opened for us. The interior of this was a stark white which contrasted the drab brown interior of the rest of the building. Lining either wall were two large refrigerated shelves that were filled with nothing but medical supplies. From the sheer quantity of prescription bottles there I’d be willing to bet that they had everything from aspirin to medical grade morphine. Past this on the far side of the room directly in front of us was another door this one the same overbearing white that matched the interior of this little alcove. I strode down to the other end and as I opened the last door I am instantly assaulted with a stench foul enough to make my body impulsively recoil and cringe. Dead bodies all clothed in scrubs and labcoats were stacked together in a haphazard heap directly behind the door. I took a step back trying to regain some measure of composure as both Rob and I covered our nose and mouth with the front of our shirts. I simply stared at the hideous pile as if a trance before Rob’s voice shocked me out of my trance, “None of them are Alex.” He said his voice muffled due to the fact that he was speaking through his garment. Another brief glance confirmed that what he was saying was true. Of the 5 bodies 3 were female and neither of the men could possibly be him. I nodded at Rob and closed the door sealing ourselves back away from the stench… even though faint hints of it still seemed to linger in the white hallway with us.
“You notice anything funny about those bodies Rob?” I ask as we both struggled to mentally recover a bit from our unexpected find. “Besides the fact that they were all dead doctors and nurses? No.” he replied.
“Did you see any stab or cut marks on any of them? Any bruises? Any reddening of the eyes? Any pockmarks or sign of vomit? I mean I'm no coroner but it doesn't seem as if any of them were shot, stabbed, choked, or poisoned.”
Rob stopped to think for a second before nodding in confirmation. “Yeah that is weird and it sure as hell wasn't natural causes either” I grunted my agreement. “Well something weird is going on here...wanna take another look?”,'
“Not really. But we are anyways.” I stated matter of factly. I raised the shirt to cover my face again and reopened the door. Being prepared for the stench did not diminish it in the slightest but I did my best to ignore it and began to really look at the bodies. There were no signs of cuts or bruising on the hands or upper arms of any of the corpses. Whatever had killed them had done it instantly and without them fighting back in the slightest. I bent down ignoring the heaving of my stomach and tried to get a better look at their faces. It was then that I noticed that each of them had pupils in different stages of dilation or retraction. Not only were the eyes different from one another but even on the stiff the left and right peepers weren’t even remotely close in size to one another, the same as someone deep into an electro-addiction. I had no idea of what could have possibly killed these people but judging from the grimaces still on their faces it had not been pleasant. I got up quickly and once again Rob and I returned to the hallway, closing the door behind us.
“Dude, I have no idea what we are looking at in there and that alone is enough to worry me. If I found a bunch of bombed out bozos in that condition that’d be one thing but those weren’t pill poppers and zap heads. That was the medical staff Marcus. I have never seen anything like this.”
“Yeah....I think we should wipe that card free of our fingerprints, put it back where we found it, and get the hell out of her.” I said as I began to nod my agreement to Rob’s assessment. We returned downstairs and put the card back on the desktop up before going to the processor room and exiting through the window we had come through. I took care as I left to close the gap without letting it re-latch on the chance that we would ever need to regain entrance to the building. I jumped down to the ground with a little roll to absorb some of the impact while rob lowered himself a lot more slowly and with more care.
Out of leads we began to wonder back to our car I tried to think about what we should do next. I had no idea where to even begin asking about something like this or what kind of red flags I would be raising if I did. I thought one of the main things keeping the legal status of neuroelectrics ambiguous was the fact that it was supposedly impossible to overdose on when using the right equipment. Were they testing a new type of alternator or charge calibration device? Why all the staff though and not just a bunch of nobodies who ended up dead? That question bothered me but not as much as to why dump them all in that room with the keycard so easy to find. I turned to Rob. “Hey lets park across the street, somewhere real secluded and let’s try to stake this place out for a while, you know, no radio, no lights I got a feeling that someone is going to be by soon.”
“Yeah....I was thinking things were laid out for one of two things. Either to pin the bodies on the first pin head who stumbled across them and reported in the police....but the more I thought about that the more I could see it not making sense. The bodies weren't visibly murdered there's nothing to make a charge stick. If you wanted to pin it on someone you make it obvious how they were killed and then plant the murder weapon on the patsy....No the only other option is...”
“The bodies and the keycard were laid out like that for a cleanup crew is coming by” I finished for him.
It wasn’t long after evening had set in when we first spied an unmarked van arrived filled with three guys in aquamarine scrubs matching those of the corpses inside the “rehab” center. We watched as they made a series of trips in and out of the building loading bags into the back of the van. I would have bet my firstborn that the bodies were in them. They finished in an astonishingly short amount of time and the van began to start up just as soon as they were finished.
“Anyway you think you can follow them?” I asked Rob. He cocked his head to the side and put his hand to his chin. “Following isn't going to be a problem…unless they take the autohighway …if there aren’t many cars on the road I’m willing to chance it but I don’t want to risk it if we don’t have to.”
“Well our only lead is pulling out of the parking lot” I replied watching them go making a mental note of the driver license number “EV66Z9”.
“Carpe noctem” he said as he began to follow at a safe distance keeping his headlights off.
“Seize the night” I echoed back as we started our pursuit of the van.
Chapter 14
Cid
13:30:11
I fought against my own gnawing pain of hunger to better focus on watching the world through the Jack’s eyes. How long had I been monitoring now? Thinking about it too hard made my vision waiver and blur and so I simply choose to push those thoughts to the back of my mind. A lot depended on how much he could salvage on this mission…failure simply was not an option
Once the signal had gone out to the agents via VRN it had not taken the Jack long to scramble a team to his location. The police were overworked and distracted by the attempt to contain what the news report were saying was the biggest riot in decades. In addition to that distraction, one had to consider the fact that as an agent of my pursuit of perfection, over the years the Jack had obtained a bit of reputation. The operatives he was calling knew that he was not someone who should be kept waiting. The four mercenaries crouched in a circle around him in the grass outside of a building for the arts on the outermost reaches of the school. There were three males in jeans and t shirts and a female who wore gym pants and a hoodie …functional clothing with none of the chromocloth flare, attire that was just casual and generic enough to completely escape notice. They said nothing and merely waited patiently for the Jack to speak as the wind blew, the background illuminated by the campus’s emergency lights and the malevolent glow of distant arson.
Each one of them had been hand selected by the Jack and together the 5 of them represented the core of my covert operations and together they had a flawless record of fatal efficiency. In all honesty this gathering was closer to a conclave of urban legends and boogiemen than it was to a group of hired guns. Jack had briefed me on each one of them back when I had first developed a need for deadly contractors to protect my empire and each one of them bore a profile that I still remembered to this day.
The first of them was a man formerly known as “the Ghoul” in his homeland of Saudi Arabia. His handsome (if a bit bookish) tanned features and slight build concealed the ghastly truth of who he was. He had been known for infiltrating facilities that were supposedly impossible to penetrate. Previously a survivalist and field combat surgeon; his methods had varied from mission to mission but his preferred techniques involved systematically collecting the eyes and hands of select targets and using the stolen body parts to get past any biometric based security that was in place. A brutal feat made impressive due to the care and knowledge one had to have in order to maintain the pilfered organs in scannable condition. The story that had earned him the moniker “The Ghoul” however was the one that had always left me uneasy in his presence. He had accepted a contract on a warlord near the Fertile Crescent. The Warlord in question was a cruel man who never traveled anywhere without a large entourage of lieutenants and soldiers as his vanguard. The assassin had acquired intelligence that the warlord liked to perform public executions of his prisoners at an open mass grave a few clicks south of the river and so while the Warlord had been off marauding the Ghoul had gone to the exposed tomb and hid. Rumor had it that he had hidden for 3 days concealed beneath the pile of rotting remains; covertly feeding on scavenging beasts and insects and waiting for the Warlord to return. When his opportunity arrived and he sniped the Warlord from amidst the bodies of the slain; the whole camp erupted in terror and confusion and the Ghoul quietly escaped in panic.
The other two were brothers and they were the youngest of the group. They were a fearful example of what happens when child soldiers live to reach late adolescence. The young men had been part of the diamond mining and smuggling ring “Groteslang” working security and ruthlessly hunting down anyone who was even accused of trying to sneak diamonds from under the eyes of the mine overseers. Of the many who had tried to evade the brothers not a single man had managed to escape from them in the untamed jungles and ramshackle villages that separated the hidden mines from advanced civilization. One day the overseer had suspected the eldest brother of taking diamonds for himself and brought his accusations to the younger of the two. Whether the accusations were true or if the overseer was merely suffering from paranoia was never known. The only truth that was certain was that instead of turning the brothers against each other, the overseer and every other man in his employ never were seen again. It was not soon after that word had spread that the brothers had adopted the name “Groteslang” themselves (“Grote” and “Slang” respectively) and were offering their deadly tracking skills to anyone who could afford to pay the right price. They were young and muscular. Wild and unpredictable. I would have deemed them too uncontrollable to have been of use had the Jack not assured me that he could keep them in check.
Lastly was the lone female of the group. Of all the operatives that the Jack had gathered today she was by far the most dangerous. She was the current Baba Yaga of the Piata Neagra. The Piata Neagra were the modern day gypsies of the black market. Roaming as far west as Romania all the way east to the yellow sea, the travelling bazar of the world’s finest contraband was never in one place for any significant length of time. The transitory merchants had no officially established territory in the underworld and instead relied on old pacts with the various crime families throughout the land to continue their enterprises in relative peace. It was known that the penalty for breaking one of these pacts or not honoring an arrangement with Piata Neagra meant death at the hands of Baba Yaga. A killer so effective and efficient that armed cartels the world over feared her name. She was a soldier who had ended the lives of politicians, generals, czars, dons, and capos. She was also the only one of the four who may have had a chance at taking down the Jack if the need ever arose. She was slight of build but I knew that her frame was composed of wiry muscle. She had crimson red hair and her features may have been beautiful once but the woman’s face (and indeed her entire body) was now completely crisscrossed with the scars of past battles.
When the Jack finally spoke they listened like soldiers getting a briefing from a commanding officer, “I am sure by now you are aware that the campus VRN network has been infected with the dominance program, every person who has interacted with the schools public network since its exposure has to be considered hostile. This program uses the VRN as a tool to affect the area of the brain that controls feelings such as trust and empathy. Bottom line is DO NOT expect normal behavior from the people you encounter. In their mind you and every othe
r human being is an enemy and any bond of humanity that they may have once felt has been disintegrated and replaced by the most basic struggle. The struggle for dominance and survival.” The Jack paused here looking each of the mercenaries in the eye one after another, making sure they fully understood the implications of his words.
“Our objective will be to retrieve a select group of students involved in our research program who we believe to have been on campus. Once these students are recovered we will also try to obtain any research or resources that they may have stored on Campus. These students must be retrieved alive and so time is a factor here. I am forwarding their pictures to your VRN now.” Jack paused once again to send out the files. He also handed each of the four a small device that resembled a small silver rectangle with two buttons in the center one red and one blue.
“Take these with you, they will allow you to signal your location to Ghoul here. if you find the corpse of one of our targets press the red button, he’ll be able to remove their VRN from their body without damaging it. As long as we can recover the data we can still consider this job a success and you will all be paid in full. One last thing another party seems to have systematically targeting and destroyed most of the research, I need you all alert and on the lookout for anything unusual. Unidentified parties should be assumed to be armed and hostile. A few meters from where we our standing is the beginning of the campus’s VRN networks area of effect and so from this point on no virtual communication or data retrieval. Our first step is to secure the art building as our base of operations. From there we’ll start our sweep of campus. Be aware that a driving force of those affected by the dominance program is the procurement and hoarding of resources. Keep your weapons hidden because they will make you a target instead of acting as a deterrent. Signal me your location once every 30 minutes with the blue button. We meet back in the Art building in 3 hours.” He didn’t ask if there were any questions because he knew his team. There would be none because they trusted their selves and the Jack with a belief so absolute that it bordered on fanaticism. Even I had to wonder if there was anything that this assembled team could not accomplish. The Jack simply nodded once and the team rose in unison to being their walk towards the art building.