by RB Stutz
I wondered how the others were internally processing everything, if they were reaching the same conclusions as I was. I caught my thoughts drifting to Sara, wondering who she was before, what her decision would be. If I stayed, I hoped she would as well. Really I hoped they all would.
Emily and Brian seemed to be really comfortable and well acclimated to their new life after only a short period of time. Their abilities were amazing. Caldwell was brilliant to let us meet them so they could showcase their skills. It strengthened the sales pitch for me. Also, laying everything out to us as a group was very smart. For me, knowing I was not in it alone and having others with me who were all in the same situation, definitely made the news a little easier to take. I had a sense of camaraderie already with four complete strangers.
Caldwell and his group knew what they were doing. But of course they did. How many others had woken before us?
“Whoa,” Sara said as she stumbled and then regained her balance.
I’d just stepped on the back of her shoe as we were walking, tripping her. “Sorry about that,” I apologized, a little embarrassed. “I wasn’t paying attention.”
“That’s ok,” she said. “I’m sure you have a lot on your mind. I mean it’s not every day you find out you’re superhero without a past and you’ll die if you try to get a tan,” she said with a small smile and a wink.
“Yep definitely a big day,” I added.
Maybe she was handling everything better than I gave her credit for.
When we made it back to the briefing room, we took the same seats as before. Matthew, Brian and Emily took seats in the row behind us. Caldwell and Batton both joined Masters, who had rejoined us, back on the podium. Masters and Batton took their seats. Caldwell remained standing.
“You have seen why we want you to be a part of our organization. Now it is the time for me to ask if you will join us or not. Before you answer, let me say a few more things.
“Our group has one mission, to seek out this domestic terrorist organization and shut it down. If you can pledge yourselves to help us work towards that cause, what we can offer you is a chance for a new life after we succeed. And we will succeed. We have to.
“We have a top notch team of researchers here at our facility. They have been working and will continue to work on ways to help you recover you memory as well as ways to treat the sunlight allergy you have. You are young and we will do all we can to give you the lives you want at the end of this. We just ask you help us. Help us make this country safe. Help us preserve democracy.” There was a brief pause before he continued.
“If you accept our offer, you will be briefed with the details of your commitment immediately and put into the training program. If you choose not to accept this offer, we will take you to another part of our facility and we will begin the preparations to place you somewhere to live out your life. Now remember, if you choose this, you will be monitored and not allowed to investigate your past. We can’t risk any compromise to our operation. Please do not take that as a threat or as pressure to join us. We don’t want you to accept our offer because the alternative frightens you, but because you want to.”
“So with all of that, who’s in?” Caldwell asked.
The room was silent for several seconds. Alex was the first to respond to the question. “I’m still in.”
He’d sure made a big turnaround from grumpy skeptic to enthusiastic supporter. I guess I had too. I just hadn’t been as openly hostile to start with.
“You can count me in,” I said.
“I’m in as well,” Rachael answered. “It seems my options are somewhat limited.”
“Me too,” said both James and Sara at the same time. They looked at each other and laughed.
“I guess that’s all of us,” Sara added.
“Wonderful,” Caldwell said. “We’re glad to have you aboard. Please, take a few minutes to talk amongst yourselves. Lt. Masters will begin the briefing shortly. I have other appointments this morning, but will try to stick my head in later. It was great meeting you all and again thank you for coming aboard. We’ll do great work together.”
At that, Caldwell left the room followed by Masters and Batton.
“Glad to have you aboard,” Emily said cheerfully from the row behind once they were gone.
“Thanks,” I said.
“You know, we’ve all taken this pretty well considering what we were bombarded with this morning,” Rachael commented.
“It was the same way when we first were told,” said Brian. “I think, not remembering anything from before helps to accept it. I would have had a harder time with it if I could remember who it was I was leaving behind.”
“So do we live here? Where is here?” asked James.
“They’ll go over all of that, but yes there are living quarters in this facility. This is actually quite a large facility and there is plenty of room to move around, once you make it through the initial training that is,” Matthew said.
“Yeah, we’re ready to get started so we can see more,” Emily interjected.
“This facility is underground, beneath a mountain in Montana,” Matthew explained. “But like I said, you will get more details during the briefing.”
“Caldwell seems pretty casual with you all. I’d expect more formality since this is a military operation. Is he always like that? Or just when he is trying to make his sales pitch,” I asked.
Matthew laughed. “He tries to keep things somewhat lighter around here during down time, but once engaged in the mission, he’s all business. Lt. Masters and Sgt. Batton however are usually all business.”
“So he’s the good cop, the glad hand, and the other two play the bad cops?” Sara asked.
“Basically yes,” answered Matthew.
“Yeah, we’ll all get to be best buds with Batton here really soon,” Emily added with a laugh. “He’s in charge of the training.”
The door to the room opened, interrupting the conversation. Masters, followed by Batton walked in and back up to the front again. Batton had a seat and Masters remained standing to address the room.
She picked up the remote from the podium and used it to turn the projector back on. The same blue screen as before appeared on the wall behind her. After a few seconds the words ‘Project Titan’ appeared in white on a solid black background.
“Titan is the code name for a group of covert special operations teams which each consist of individuals with enhanced abilities. The sole mission of Titan is to uncover and stop a domestic terrorist group which is embedded deep within the U.S. government. You five, along with Emily and Brian will be trained to form the sixth Titan team. Your team will be led by Matthew,” she began.
Masters proceeded to brief us on what we had just signed onto. We were told Caldwell was the commanding officer responsible for Titan and Masters was his second in command. Batton was the training NCO and would be providing all of the required training over the next few months with the assistance of Matthew. Once Batton and Matthew determined our team was ready, there would be a series of test missions to assess how we perform in the field. Once ready, we would begin to go out on live missions.
The first five Titan teams were already executing live missions. During our training, we would be kept in a separate part of the facility, isolated from the other teams. Once placed into live mission status, we would be able to move to the common living area where we could then interact with the other teams.
The facility we were in was the base of Titan operations. It was a multi-level state of the art subterranean facility, housed in the Montana Rockies. She put a schematic on the screen. It showed a round central structure with six other structures placed evenly around the central structure. Each surrounding structure was connected to the center with an access tunnel.
The center structure housed the central operations of the facility, the communications hub and several common areas including the large training area we were in earlier, briefing rooms and a cafeteria. The c
enter structure was larger than the structures on the perimeter and had six levels.
The six smaller structures varied in size and function. There were two designated as living areas with small, fully furnished, one-bedroom apartments. One housed the Titan agents and the other the officers and support staff of the facility.
Another one of the structures was a biological and medical research laboratory and hospital. This was where we were held while in our comas. It was the largest of the six smaller structures.
One of the structures housed a research and development section for new weapons and technology as well as a transportation holding area. It also housed the main access point to the outside, only one of two access points in the entire facility. The other was a restricted emergency exit point in the central structure.
The computer and data center which ran the entire facility took up another one of the structures in its entirety. The sixth structure was largely utilized for storage with two levels dedicated as a small training area and some limited living space. This area was reserved for the Titan basic training program and was where our group would be for the next few months. Collectively the facility was known as the HUB.
I noticed during the presentation the shape of the facility on the schematic resembled the patch on the shoulders of the uniforms that Masters and Batton wore. The green patch had a small black version of the schematic with a red inverted triangle on the center structure.
The training was to be intense, structured with a regimented daily routine. We’d start with the basics, and progress from there.
“You will be built from the ground up,” Masters said.
The training phases would be combat techniques, special weapons and equipment, stealth techniques, advanced computer skills and espionage.
Like Matthew had said, for the duration of the initial training, we’d be isolated in the training area. Food and supplies would be brought daily from the central area of the HUB. This isolation was to give us the focus we needed to make it through the training. Once in active status, we’d be moved into the Titan living quarters and get clearance to access other parts of the facility.
After the briefing, Masters took us to another room where we were issued uniforms, the same black fatigues the others were wearing and other supplies we needed initially. After that, we boarded a small enclosed transport and took a short ride to the training facility, our new home for the next several months.
As we entered the cold empty training hall, I was filled with a mixed sense of anticipation and apprehension on what was to come. I really didn’t know what I was getting myself into. I was flying blind, guided only by an uncomfortable faith in people who were strangers and a slight echo of the person I once was. I guessed the others were as well. The only thing to do was to jump in and hope for the best.
CHAPTER 9
Three hours after I made my way down from the dark mountain road I was again back in Idaho, driving west on highway 200. It was almost 5:00 am with no sign of a sun rise. Dense forest surrounded the dark highway which had been mostly quiet. I could have counted on one hand the number of cars I’d passed in the last hour.
I’d gone over the facts multiple times, trying to determine why Titan was after me now and how they’d been able to track me down. I’d been on the run for over a year, without any sign of them, so why were they popping their heads up now? Somehow they’d been able to track me, but surely there hadn’t be anything on me or any of my possessions for them to track; otherwise they would’ve come after me before.
My activities over the past year had made the news, but nothing to blatantly point to me. Surely they hadn’t found me based on any of that, but then again maybe they’d been able to put together a pattern based on seemingly random news stories. I needed to be more careful, even lower key than I had been. I knew better. Hell, they trained me better.
I decided Seattle was my next stop. Distancing me a little further from the HUB was probably a good idea. Back at the motel I’d seen several articles related to a string of unsolved murders recently in the downtown Seattle area. I’d never been there and if they were somehow tracking my patterns, the move would throw them off the scent.
If I profiled myself based on my activities over the previous year, I’d have said I tended to stick to smaller communities where I might better be able to use my talents to help. There were limits of range and frequency that went along with my ability. Also, I was somewhat intimidated by larger populations. My limited exposure and experience with so few people as well as the overwhelming feeling my ability channeled, with too many around, was the main driver of this aversion.
Just the thought of so many people together, crowding and surrounding me, made me extremely nervous. Even though the larger population of Seattle would take me from my zone of comfort and provide several challenges to what I’d be able to do, by going to a larger city I’d be able to better hide and hopefully throw Titan off of my trail.
I wasn’t entirely sure why I had limited myself to the general area of Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. There had been plenty to keep me busy, plenty of monsters out there to stop, but there were plenty of small towns with the same elsewhere as well. There hadn’t been any conscious decision to do so. It’s just what I did. I realized now though staying so close to the HUB was idiotic at best and I needed to get away.
I hadn’t been able to figure out, why I’d been allowed to go. It didn’t make any sense to me. I checked the truck as best I could for any type of tracking device and found nothing. Surely they hadn’t let me go without some way to find me. I decided I’d take my time, taking an indirect route to Seattle, ditch the truck along the way and find something to replace it. I hated to do it. I loved that truck, but I couldn’t afford the risk. With the trade in, I’d have enough cash to get something else that would at least get me to Seattle.
My beloved Land Cruiser entered my life shortly after leaving the HUB. I walked for days after waking alone in the dense dark Montana woods. I stayed under cover and rested during daylight, moving only at night until I finally came upon a small town. The truck was parked in front of a house with a sale sign for $1,000 in the window. That was the night of my first bank heist. I went into the only bank in town and acquired the cash I needed. I paid the trucks owner the $1,000 and was on my way. There were a few minor repairs along the way, but overall it served me well and I’d grown attached. As sad and pathetic as it might seem, it pretty much was the only constant in my life over the previous year. I hoped I’d be able to find something similar to replace it.
I looked down to check the fuel gage and, as suspected, saw I was close to empty.
“Maybe I can find something with better gas mileage,” I muttered.
After a few more miles, I saw a sign indicating fuel at the next exit. I hadn’t seen other signs of civilization in the area, so I guessed it was probably one of those large middle of nowhere truck stops, an oasis to weary travelers, where it would stand alone off of the exit. When I got to the exit and turned off of the highway, my suspicions were confirmed.
The yellow and red neon illumination showed brightly through the still dark night as I pulled up to one of the empty pumps. The light revealed the building sat in front of the same dense forest that surrounded everything. Everything beyond the glow of the lights was black.
There were only two other vehicles parked at the pumps, a blue sedan and a silver minivan. There was another vehicle parked in front of the store as well as two big rigs parked to the side. I got out of the truck and as I closed the door I noticed a sign informing cash customers to pay first. I, of course, was a cash customer.
“Where’s the trust?” I mumbled under my breath.
Apparently it was a pet peeve of mine.
I walked towards the store from the pump area and as I entered through the glass double doors, I heard another vehicle, loud, pull up to the store from behind me. I turned to see two middle aged white men in a late 80’s era yellow Ford pull into one o
f the empty spots directly in front of the store. The two men looked exactly like what I would have expected a local from around there to look like. I don’t mean to stereotype, but I do have my preconceived notions. Shoot me, I’m human.
I turned back uninterested and continued into the store.
As I walked in, the aromas of old grease and cigarettes rushed at me from all sides. The smell of a truck stop is one of those constants you can count on. Those of us who are ‘of the road,’ can find comfort in its familiarity no matter where we might be.
There were two clerks behind the front counter, both men. One was of middle-eastern descent and probably in his forties. He had medium length black hair parted neatly to the side with a thick black moustache. The other was a younger white man probably in his twenties. His long brown hair was held up in a ponytail and his beard had a few days growth. They both had on light blue button down shirts with their names on the right hand pocket. If the shirts were accurate, the clerks’ names were Ahmed and Jack.
I wasn’t the only customer in the store. There was a young black couple, probably in their early thirties with two kids, one boy and one girl. The girl couldn’t have been any older than six and the boy was younger than that. The two kids seemed to be trying to make the difficult, yet apparently important decision of what type of candy to get as the parents had a quiet conversation with each other just behind them. I thought it was a little early for candy, but whatever.
Over by the beverage cooler was an older white man wearing faded jeans, a red flannel shirt and a green John Deer hat. He was shorter in stature, but looked to weigh twice as much as I did. His abdomen protruded out in front of him causing the tucked in flannel shirt to probably be always untucked at the front as it was then. He scratched the bulge as he was deciding what to get.
Next to the man in the hat was a young Asian woman, probably in her early twenties. She was wearing a red Boise State sweatshirt and had her long black hair tied back in pony tail. She looked like she was waiting to get into the same cooler the man in the hat was busy with, but he was in her way. The man in the hat backed up some and almost ran into her. She had an irritated look on her face.