by A J Jameson
“It’s always been like that,” Eduardo said. “Keeps us on our toes.”
“Yeah, but before it was like the chaos fed the need for order. Now it’s just chaos breeding more chaos.”
“Well then I guess we need to try a little harder for order,” Eduardo said. “You can’t run away just because it’s getting difficult. I can’t stop you from leaving to get a little air, but just plain leaving?” He shook his head. “It’s not in you. It’s not in any of us. Some things around here need fixing, I agree with you. So let’s make it right.”
Zyta took a big whiff of the rubbery air, the paint, the residue of brayed metal. Eduardo was right. Running away wasn’t the answer. And quitting C3U for a normal life…not possible. Not really. And who’s to say the outside normal was any better than Zyta’s normal?
She’d stay. She’d fight, and she’d make it better. Or get exiled in the process. Another impossibility, after all, her being the closest thing Law had to a daughter.
Chapter 14
Axel woke up from a long, murky sleep. His cemented organs and muscles began to liquify. He could move an inch, but then needed to rest and regain his strength. Another inch. More rest. His eyes wouldn’t open past a squint, blurring everything around him: the yellow bulb shining above his head; the four tall figures crowded around his bed; the thin tube that ran from his forearm to an IV. And then the world sharpened to the point of a chiseled crystal.
“Where am I?” Axel blurted.
The twin ghosts that Axel had been seeing in his dreams hovered over his head. Their tooth-pick lips curved into happy smiles. “Hello, Axel, how are you feeling?” the ghost woman asked.
“Alert,” he said. “I can feel my heart beating against my ribcage.”
The woman’s smile faded as the man’s grew. “Listen, I want to apologize for my colleague pistol whipping you,” he said. “She was made upset by your friend’s outburst and reacted a bit…harshly.”
Now that he mentioned it, Axel did feel a sensation of phantom pain pressing against his forehead. He managed to lift his arm only a few inches before it was halted in place.
“Just a precaution,” the ghost woman said.
“We had to,” her brother said. “No hard feelings about the, uh, your head?”
The thump thump thump in Axel’s brain quickened. He tried in vain to rip the restraints. Metal cuffs dug into his wrists. “Little Eye.”
“We have to sedate him.”
“My MI, I need my MI,” Axel stammered.
“Axel, here, look at me,” the ghost man said, leaning in close enough for Axel to notice his 5-o’clock shadow. The fuzzy warm memory of Axel shaving his face in prep for his big transformation flowed through him. He was going to have a job. A title. Be just like everyone else. “We need to ask you some questions, Axel.”
“Interview,” Axel muttered.
The ghost man chuckled. “Yes, an interview. Would you participate in an interview?”
The cymbal clashing around in Axel’s skull fell silent. The metal restraints around his wrists became soft. “That’ll relax him,” the ghost woman said. Her face replaced the ghost man’s, hovering only inches above Axel’s head. She had eyebrows thin as her lips. “I gave you a mild sedative. It’ll alleviate your anxiety but shouldn’t cloud your judgement.”
“Are you two related?” Axel asked. The pair smiled, and then they were gone.
The room began to shake. Not the room, my bed, Axel realized. It had rotated him to a standing position. Directly ahead was a row of computers.
“I want you to understand that our company policy necessitates the use of restraints,” the ghost man said. “It’s protocol.” He spoke from somewhere behind Axel’s left shoulder. “And to be perfectly honest, we don’t trust you, as I’m guessing you don’t trust us. Not yet, at least.”
Unsure if the question was rhetorical, Axel shook his head and said, “No.” While doing so he noticed a third person in the room, sitting at the computer desk to his left. She was smaller than the ghosts, both in stature and bone density, but possessed a gleam of furious energy in her eyes that the others hadn’t. She wore a baseball cap and a blue wrist splint on her right hand.
“The restraints work the same as an extendable leash for a dog,” the ghost man said. “I’m going to give you enough slack to reach the keyboard, but don’t make any sudden movements, or I’ll have to retract them. Understand?”
Axel nodded. A faint metallic click accompanied the loosening of one restraint. Another click and Axel could lift both hands. He touched the tips of his fingers to the keyboard, left pointer on F, right on J. It was incredible how pristinely uncluttered the workstation was. All the workstations, he realized.
Each consisted of a computer tower, screen with built-in speakers, and a keyboard and mouse. That was it. No stacks of piled papers, pencils, mugs, books, or fingernail clippers. How does anyone work like this? “Okay,” Axel said, and reached up to check the positioning of his MI. But his restraints wouldn’t allow it. I have no MI, he remembered. But that was okay. He had spent the last three years preparing for this day—the day he wouldn’t have his supplemental gadgets. The day he’d operate like any other person.
“Okay,” he said again. “Do you want me to set a fire wall, plant malware? Write an encryption or decode one? I can tap into cameras, audio feeds, follow financial transactions from print to retire. Create, locate, and destroy identities.”
“We assumed you’d have all the basics down,” Ghost Man said. “What we have planned is a little more elaborate. A mission, currently underway. My colleague sitting next to you will fill you in.”
“What we have so far,” the woman in the baseball cap said, reaching over Axel to power up his computer screen, “are multiple localities of worship for a radical religious group. Six in total, all visited throughout the day. We need to know which ones are the most viable for continuous surveillance. We don’t want to waste our time watching a certain location if the attendees only congregate for an hour once a week.”
Axel settled a hand on the computer mouse, it’s slender figure strange to his touch. He searched the computer screen for anything resembling the emblem of a database but became utterly overwhelmed. The desk may have been minimalistic, but the number of desktop icons that cluttered his screen was like sifting through a pile of dumped puzzle pieces.
“Do you have the names of the ministers at the congregations? Or the daily schedules of those participating?” Axel asked.
“That’s where you come in,” Ghost Man said. “We’re interested in your methodology.”
“Do you think that’s the best approach?” Baseball Cap said, reaching over Axel once again to click-open a desktop application. “This search engine will link you to the personal information of anybody currently registered in the federal database. It also extrapolates results from Facebook, LinkedIn, and various other social media outlets.”
“What’s the name and location of the six synagogues?” Axel asked. This time his advisor accessed his computer from her own. She opened a file pertaining to the information he requested. “And as for approach, the easiest method would be to monitor each location and tally the numbers. But to get an accurate count, I’d have to watch the feeds for at least ninety days.” Someone whistled from behind. “I’d rather gather personal information for all those who attend services and comb through their schedules.”
“How will you get their information?”
“Scan the cell phones for every home within a fifty-block radius of each synagogue. And then I’ll run an algorithm for their recorded GPS locations and speculate the number of attendees.”
“And you can do this all within how many hours?” Ghost Man asked.
“Oh, no,” Axel said. “This will take days.”
“Shit.”
“Which reminds me, I have a hamster.” Axel tried to peek behind him, but the upturned bed blocked his view. When facing forward, he noticed that the computer screen had
a small, recessed lens built-in.
“We’ll have somebody stop by your house to check on the hamster,” Ghost Woman said.
The window for the computer’s webcam opened on Axel’s screen, granting a brief view of everything behind him before the woman in the baseball cap dived over his keyboard and pushed the power button.
“Whoa whoa whoa,” the ghost man stammered.
“Relax, it’s off,” his presumable sister said. “Easy, Marek.”
“Marek?” Axel said.
The room fell silent. Uneasily silent, since Axel now knew there were far more than three people present. “Everybody out,” one of the strangers said.
The woman in the baseball cap, smiling for the first time, rubbed her hands together. “Shall we get started?”
* * *
Imogen Ayton lived in a rowhome about midway down a one-way street. The area wasn’t busy, but it wasn’t deserted, either. For this reason, Sadie planted a van (containing two Charlie squad members) at the street’s access point, effectively barricading it. Alpha squad had its own vehicle—a white work van with extension ladders clasped to its roof—parked right outside the target’s home.
The mission was to be short-lived and precise. Get in, eliminate the target, get out. The entry team tipped their submachine guns with silencers and limited their entry-pacification devices strictly to EMP-blinders. Alpha team’s noise disturbance rating was 1 out of 10. The loudest sound would be Imogen’s body hitting the floor.
“I wish we could drag this out,” Sadie said to her team. They were outfitted in all black with pistols strapped to their thighs; stun grenades and EMP-blinders attached to their tactical waist belts; and radios, ammunition mags, and flashlights velcroed to their Kevlar vests. Cameras mounted to their ballistic helmets aired a live-feed to Charlie squad. “I wish we could take this murdering bitch back to base with us and stab her with her own blades. Watch her bleed out slowly. It still wouldn’t be payback enough for what she did to Kyle.”
Sadie’s squad members agreed, nodding. Mason, the team’s ballistic shield operator, triggered the green laser of his pistol and measured its accuracy against the weapon’s iron sight. Ray, designated door-breacher, tested the automatic lock-picking tool before clasping it to his utility belt. After this he smacked clear the charging handle on his submachine gun.
“But that’s not the mission,” Sadie said. “We have a loose end…which reminds me.” She dug through the duffle bag of accessories—flashlight attachments, foregrips, mountable sights, and here they are. She distributed the custom-made, cylindrical shell-catchers. “We’re not going to leave a trail like Bravo did.”
Ray mounted a shell-catcher onto the side of his submachine gun, Mason doing the same with his pistol. Daylight barely penetrated the van’s tinted windows, yet the sweat trickling down the temples and sideburns of both operatives was apparent. Sadie felt the same dampness on her own skin when she inserted her MET. “Hunter, we’re about to move in. Are the frequencies clear?”
“Affirmative. You have the go-head.”
“Roger. Inform Charlie to ablaze after we’ve secured the area.”
“Roger that, Sadie,” Hunter radioed. “Charlie squad standing by.”
Bravo disembarked the van and stacked on Imogen’s door. The sun hung at a one-o’clock high. Its beams refracted violently off the many windshields and mirrors of the parked cars. Sadie didn’t wait for her eyes to adjust. She tapped the shoulder of Mason, who was standing in front of her with his shield hugged close to his chest. In turn he nodded to Ray, who got to work picking the lock. A moment later he returned the picking tool to his waist belt and waited for Sadie’s command.
She nodded, Ray twisted the doorknob, and Mason bashed the door in with his shield. All three operatives ducked as a horn wailed from within the house. Continuous, and at a frequency one note above nails on a chalkboard, it achieved the effect of momentarily immobilizing Sadie’s team. “Cut the power,” she screamed. Ray tossed in an EMP-blinder. A brilliant flash of light spilled from inside the house.
Sadie didn’t hear the static scratch of her earpiece falling offline; the horn was still blaring. Not electrical, she thought. Or the EMP was a dud. Only one way to find out; she patted Ray’s shoulder again.
He took the cue and entered. Sadie went in after him, clicking-on her chest light as pure darkness engulfed them. A loud snap and Mason went down, shrieking. Sadie knelt directly behind him, catching the edge of his shield with one hand. She held it propped up as best she could. “Contact!” she yelled. Resting the handle of her submachine gun on her forearm, she opened fire.
Whispered thuds followed by splintering wood and shredding dry wall contended with the wailing horn. Ray joined the fray, his submachine gun only inches above Sadie’s head. He opened fire in a sweeping motion.
“I’m out,” Sadie shouted, and crouched closer to the shield. As she changed magazines, she noticed that Mason’s shield rested atop his abdomen, his lower body exposed. “Get him out of here,” she ordered Ray.
Working together, Sadie lifting the shield and Ray pulling at Mason’s shoulders, they opened a path of retreat for their wounded. They also opened a clear view of the room. A dozen bear traps were scattered like mines on a battlefield. Sadie glanced back at Mason. Chomped around his ankle were the teeth of a metal trap. She also spotted the source of the horn—a pressurized blow horn—which was now moaning something pitiful compared to its earlier howl.
“Hunter, get Charlie down here to treat Mason’s wounds,” Sadie radioed.
“They’re en route.”
“Ray, on me,” she said.
Mason took it upon himself to inject his thigh with a tablet of morphine. “Watch your step.” Ray gave his buddy’s helmet two smacks before rejoining Sadie.
They re-entered the living room. Sadie called out the traps one at a time. She spotted a braided fish-line trip wire, tied off to an eye-lit screwed into the wall. At the other end of the wire was a pencil that supported a heavy textbook. And under the book, a fresh can of pressurized air.
“She’s got the whole place booby-trapped,” Ray whispered. “Probably long gone.”
Sadie had the same thought, but they had to make sure. “Imogen Ayton show yourself,” she yelled.
Footsteps sounded behind them. They turned around, Sadie’s finger repelling far from the trigger as she found two Charlie members in her crosshairs. They rotated Mason’s body and then lifted him clear from the doorway.
Sadie and Ray spun back around. “Come out with your hands up and we won’t fuck your place up anymore.”
“Sadie, you have a response unit inbound,” Hunter reported. “I advise evacuation. Charlie is moving in to set ablaze.”
“Door left,” Sadie said, and entered a bathroom. No Imogen, but something else was present; a quiet ticking sound. Sadie tried the light switch, but all remained dark. The EMP. “Grab the EMP shell, we’re bugging out,” she said. Or tried to say—her brain processed the words—but somewhere between the E and P the glass mirror above the basin exploded into a thousand shards. The left side of her cheek, neck, and arm became a pin cushion. Pressure, but no pain. And she couldn’t hear anything over the howl of another tripped air horn. Please don’t step on a trap.
Neither of them did as Ray guided them out of the building. The two Charlie members had returned to the front steps. They regarded Sadie as if she were the holy spirit—awed and in disbelief. And then she saw the fire in their eyes. The fire blazing from somewhere within the apartment. She tried to turn and see it for herself, but her neck was thick with burning ice and wouldn’t rotate.
“Make sure it all catches,” Ray said, reminding Charlie squad of their duties.
“You got it.”
Sadie stumbled down the steps and crossed the sidewalk to their work van, Ray supporting her. It wasn’t until she got a glimpse of herself in the reflection of a parked car that a torrent of wooziness swarmed her. Hundreds of reflective, triangular-
shaped shards porcupined her neck and face. Mostly her neck. One eclipsed the rest, its bulky size three times larger than all the others but somehow mostly concealed under her flesh.
She fumbled in her cargo pocket for an adrenaline shot and finally found it as Ray loaded her into the back of the van, next to Mason. “Hang in there,” she told Mason, before realizing he was unconscious. Then another piece of glass jabbed her thigh.
“Just a scratch,” Ray said, tossing the expended morphine injection. “We’ll have you patched up in no…”
But Sadie had already fallen unconscious.
* * *
Axel spent three days living/interviewing/sleeping in the command center of C3U. His task to locate the most frequented synagogues had been completed, yet he didn’t notify the woman overseeing his progress. She didn’t speak much, anyway. And she only left the room after someone else from the organization had come to relieve her. It was almost always the ghost man (Marek), except once when a skinny guy with long blond hair, like Axel’s used to be, came in with a measuring tape to record Axel’s physical characteristics. The new guy spoke mostly to himself: great, now turn. Excellent. Oh yeah, you’ll be easy. And then the woman who wore the same baseball cap every day (she refused to give her name) returned, and Axel never saw the tan man again.
That was day two.
“How’s it coming along,” Baseball Cap asked. She sounded bored, the excitement Axel had stirred after his web cam ruse having vanished. For some reason he yearned for a second coming of that excitement. A display of liveliness that he himself evoked.
“Do you mind if I tap into my home database to access my personal search engine?” he asked.
His overseer perked up at the question. Her plush lips, thick nose, and puffy cheeks rendered her face distinct from those in Axel’s facial recognition software. If only he had his eyeglasses to record her.
“I’ll have to check…” she trailed off, lips pursed. The motion reminded Axel of how Imogen’s lips looked at the club when she took a drag of her cigarette. “I guess I can monitor you. Don’t do anything stupid,” she said, but there was no menace in her words. If anything, she was eager.