by Lund, S.
"We met at Mike's," she began, and told them everything she could remember in as much detail as possible. They peppered her with questions and made her recount certain elements of the story over and over, especially about the speed at which Brandon's wound had healed. For the next couple of hours, they questioned her until she was exasperated. When there was a brief lull in the questions, while Professor Singer consulted his cell and Holmes flipped through his notes, she decided to ask them some questions.
"So you found us through Brandon's neural chip when it checked in at its usual time?"
"No. Brandon missed an entire check-in. At that point, we had no idea where he was. We didn't find Brandon until he left your father's cabin and his chip pinged the satellite the next time it was due."
"How did you get to Davis Cove so fast?"
"We were contacted by the local police about the shooting of a CIA asset in Davis Cove. Once we had the ballistics report, we knew it was Brandon or someone using his weapon. Otherwise, we wouldn't have found you until his chip pinged the satellite the next time, and we wouldn't have been there to check it out."
"A CIA asset was in Davis Cove? Brandon shot him?"
"Yes. We believe he was sent to take the man out and was injured in the process. The man who shot Brandon is dead. When police found his body, they contacted us; we traced the gun to Brandon through ballistics."
"Who was it? One of our guys?"
"Yes. A CIA asset who used to work with your father," he said.
"Who? What was he doing in Davis Cove?”
Holmes smiled. "Sorry. That's above your pay grade," he said. "Anyway, when we were contacted by local police after they found the body, we traced the bullet casing and knew it was him. We searched for him in the area, but he was already in your cabin when we realized he'd killed one of our men."
"You got the bullet, conducted ballistics, and traced it to Brandon in less than forty-eight hours?" Anna frowned, because that sounded way too fast. "That seems a bit unbelievable. Usually, it takes weeks to recover the bullets and casings from a crime scene and then process them, do the ballistics analysis, and find the weapon in a database."
"Unusual but not unbelievable," Singer said. "As soon as the police contacted us about the death of our asset, they expedited preliminary forensic analysis of the bullet casing and faxed us the data. It showed that the bullet was fired from Brandon's weapon. The reason we couldn't see Brandon was because your father was smart and built the entire cabin as a big Faraday cage to block out any attempt to surveil him through electronics. The entire time he was in your cabin, he was invisible to us. We knew about your father's cabin, of course, and that if Brandon was in the area and we couldn't find him, it would be his most likely location."
That shocked Anna. She didn't know the cabin was secure from an electromagnetic pulse or surveillance. She knew her father had been a prepper at heart, but that seemed to go quite far. Had he really felt so concerned about privacy and security that he would have the building secured? Was he so worried about an EMP that he built a house-sized Faraday cage?
"I had no idea," Anna said. "How would you build an entire house as a Faraday cage?"
"Solid aluminum exterior, with special shielded vents and gaskets. Any windows would be leaks if they were made from conventional glass, but they could be covered with special blinds to minimize any leakage."
Anna thought about the blinds in her father's house and how thick they were.
"Why would he do that? I know he was concerned about an EMP, but he never mentioned building it that way."
"He was a spook. Old habits die hard, I guess." Professor Singer smiled. "We were colleagues for years. I missed his presence in Operations when he went into Planning." A moment passed, and Anna suspected they were both remembering her father.
"What did Brandon tell you about who he is?" Holmes asked.
Anna relayed how Brandon claimed he didn't remember how he'd come to be in Maine or Davis Cove. How the last memory he had was from Montana in September.
"Three months is a long time for amnesia surrounding a head trauma," Professor Singer said. "Usually, the amnesia extends to the hours or days immediately before the event. Three months..." He made a face like he didn't believe it. "That pushes credulity. Maybe he was hiding who he was."
"Who is he? He had eight different IDs."
Holmes raised his eyebrows. "Who indeed? He's Brandon O'Neil. Thirty-two years old, former Navy SEAL, CENTCOM, Special Operations, as he told you. But he's also a traitor who went to the other side."
"Which side is that?" she asked, not willing to admit what Brandon had already confessed to.
"Anti-government militia in Montana."
"That's what he told me," she said finally, surprised that Brandon had told her the truth. But why, then, did her brother trust Brandon with his life—and with hers? Theo wasn't anti-government. Quite the opposite. He was as patriotic as anyone Anna knew.
She rubbed her eyes, frustrated and not knowing what to think. "What happens next?"
"You leave in thirty-six hours," Holmes said, seemingly impatient. He gathered up his file and stood. "Until then, you'll be staying in the barracks. Once we finish debriefing both you and Brandon, we'll begin. Brandon will be rescued and will take you to your brother and get you into the inner circle."
"What if Theo's dead?"
Professor Singer shook his head. "We're sure Brandon was in Davis Cove to take you to him," he said. "Why else would he come to the cabin and convince you to come with him?"
"I don't know," she said and rubbed her forehead. "I need to sleep.”
"The guard will escort you to your room for the time being. We'll speak again in the morning."
Anna stood up when Professor Singer did. "Can I get in to see Brandon? Will you let me at least talk to him? I know you'll be monitoring what we say. I just want to hear his version of this story."
Holmes glanced at Professor Singer.
"It's fine with me," Professor Singer said. "Just be prepared: He'll lie.”
"You can see him tomorrow,” Holmes said. "You'll be in a room with a guard, and you'll be recorded. Let him think you're still on his side."
"I'm not used to lying," she said. Then she felt guilty, if course, because she had lied by omission several times with Professor Singer and Holmes.
"I know you aren't," Professor Singer said. He came over and took Anna’s arm. "I know this is hard to take in all at once, but I also knew you'd want to help us and help the program that your father started and ran for the past decade. This is his baby, Anna. He'd be so proud to know you were helping us. Maybe saving Theo in the process."
She forced a smile. "I hope so."
"Go to your barracks room. Rest. When you're done, come to the office and read over some materials so you get up to speed on the mission. Once everything's in place, we'll start. You're not free to leave the facility, though, and will have a guard with you at all times. Is that understood?"
Anna nodded. "Yes."
What else could she say? Objecting on principle would get her incarcerated indefinitely. At least if she cooperated, she’d find out for herself if her brother was dead or alive—and, if dead, perhaps who killed him.
She’d go with Brandon. Theo had said to trust him and him alone, so Anna decided to do just that.
Chapter Sixteen
A man entered the room and came to the bed with hatred in his eyes. Brandon braced himself because the man’s expression suggested Brandon was going to get a beating.
He was right.
The man slammed his fist into Brandon’s jaw. The pain was intense.
"What the fuck?" Brandon said, tasting blood from an injury where his cheek met the man’s fist. "What was that for?"
"That's payback," the man practically growled. "That's what for. And for trying to seduce her. She's out of your league, O'Neil. She's the daughter of a patriot and she's valuable to us. You're never going to touch her again."
; That was interesting. He was protective of Anna. Maybe a colleague of her father's? Maybe he had his eyes on her and resented that she had picked Brandon. That gave him a real sense of pleasure. Brandon didn't know who the hell the man was, but he enjoyed the thought the man was jealous of him. Lying restrained on a fucking hospital gurney, it was about all he had. At the same time, he worried about Anna. She was untrained, an academic, and vulnerable. He thought she was still on his side, but was she?
"Payback for what?" he replied, feeling the cut inside his mouth with his tongue. "If I don't know why you're assaulting me, how can I feel like you've avenged some wrong?"
What was he thinking, taunting the man like that? He was most likely a little high from the pain killers.
"Fuck off," the man said and slammed his fist into Brandon’s ribs. Brandon grunted as the pain ripped through him. The man walked around in a circle, his fists still clenched like he wanted to attack Brandon again. "You'll remember why I'm beating the crap out of you soon enough. Luckily, you sonsabitches heal really fast." He leaned closer so that his face was over Brandon’s, the hatred clear in his eyes. "I can beat the shit out of you and it's no big problem. By tomorrow, the bruises will start to heal—soon, there'll be no scars to prove I did anything. Just your word against mine."
Brandon didn't respond, still recovering from the two blows, deciding that silence would be his best option.
Finally, the man left Brandon alone, and he relaxed, the tension of having the man in the room with him dissipating. So he did heal exceptionally fast... That suggested that he was part of the program Anna spoke about. If so, it was news to him. It had to be a recent development—something in the past three months because Brandon’s last real memory was in September. At that point in his life, he was just a regular guy who bled profusely when wounded, who needed just as many rations, as much sleep and water as anyone else. Had he become part of a black program to create soldiers who were able to heal fast, bleed less, and everything else Anna spoke of? Had the militia developed this gene therapy Anna spoke about—were they deploying it in their Special Forces operators?
It would come in handy, but at the same time, Brandon felt disoriented to be part of something and to have capabilities of which he knew nothing. He would have liked to have been informed. Perhaps he had been, but the head injury he’d received in the accident had wiped the memories clean.
Three months of memory loss seemed like too much for a simple trauma, which usually focused around the trauma event itself. It was also too short for the truly serious kind of amnesia—global retrograde amnesia, caused by damage to the parts of the brain responsible for memories of the past. In those cases, memory loss could be total. All that remained were procedural memories: how to do adult things without knowing who you were. Brandon was also glad he didn't have anterograde amnesia, the kind that prevented you from forming new memories. He could do that well enough, but everything from September up to when he woke up in Anna's cabin was gone.
Blank.
He knew who he was, and he remembered his past—or at least, a past—but nothing beyond the first few days of September. And suspiciously, none of what Theo had written about the two of them in the letter. That read like a story, not anything about Brandon’s actual past that he remembered. He didn't recognize Theo. He didn't remember serving with him. The picture was proof that they had been together at some point while Brandon was with CENTCOM, but he was drawing a complete and total blank about Theo and that period of his life.
That, too, was a mystery...
But at the same time, Brandon believed the letter. Something in his gut told him that the letter to Anna was real, that he could believe what it said about Theo and his friendship, and the danger Anna was in, and that he really did have to find his way to Theo, whoever he was and wherever he was.
If Brandon ever got out of custody, that was...
The day passed slowly, and the only change in scenery was when a medic came in to change the bag of whatever it was they were giving Brandon in the IV and empty his urine bag, since he had been catheterized.
"You're lucky you heal really fast," the medic said, raising his eyebrows as he stood beside the bed to check Brandon’s IV. "I'll take that catheter out now."
"News to me," he said. "Any idea how I got this wonderful ability?"
The medic didn't say anything, just finished removing Brandon’s catheter—a procedure he could have done without and hoped he didn't have to undergo again. Once the medic was done and had adjusted the sheets, he leaned down to fix the pillow and whispered in a voice so soft Brandon could barely hear him.
"You're one of the last ones. They'll get you out. Stay on your toes."
Brandon was shocked at that. ‘The last ones’? That was what Theo said in his letter.
They'd get him out? He should stay on his toes?
Were they fucking with him?
Brandon lay in silence, trying to figure out what to think and, based on that, what to do.
Obviously, he was helpless, held captive in a government facility. Unless someone came to his rescue, the only future he could imagine was one of facing a court-martial trial and being sent to prison—or executed.
But he was a member of a legally established militia, not a terrorist planning on overthrowing the government. The group's purpose was to defend the Constitution of the United States of America against a rogue regime. The medic's warning to stay on his toes suggested that Brandon needed to be ready to act, if the occasion arose. To escape, he assumed.
Then doubt crept in. If he tried to escape government custody, military custody, they could rightfully shoot him. Yet if he didn't try to escape if the opportunity arose, he’d likely be sentenced to life in a military prison, probably somewhere off US soil—or worse.
His instinct was to take whatever opportunity he could to escape. He didn't trust his captors to recognize Brandon’s rights as a US citizen. Period. As far as he was concerned, he was a prisoner of war. The first duty of a prisoner of war was to resist, so resist he would.
Chapter Seventeen
Anna spent the night in a ten-by-twelve room with a military-style cot, a toilet, sink, and desk. It felt a lot like a cell. Whatever the case, she slept poorly, for the bed was hard and the light from the hallway was on all night.
When she woke, she prepared for the day, glad she had at least brought some personal items and a few changes of clothes in her backpack. She brushed her teeth and hair, and waited for someone to come and get her. Her stomach rumbled. She hoped they had a cafeteria or something in the facility—and coffee. Without her usual cup, she’d get a raging headache.
Professor Singer arrived soon after she was ready, and took Anna to a cafeteria in the basement of the building. They ate a meal doled out onto partitioned plates like you'd find in a school. Eggs, toast, juice, coffee, bacon. Anna ate hungrily and drank the coffee despite the bitter taste. It wasn't the fair-trade dark roast she was used to at her neighborhood café, and she realized what a pampered life she led back in Manhattan.
"Holmes and Parker will take you to see Brandon, but you should prepare yourself. He's belligerent and has been roughed up a bit by his guards when he tried to escape in the night."
She grimaced. "At least he heals quickly."
"That he does. He and your brother and a handful of other operatives."
"I remember the paper you gave me to read last year. Were you trying to interest me in the technology back then?"
"I was," Professor Singer said with a guilty smile. "I hoped to turn your brain to understanding it and how we could improve on what we had already accomplished, fix some of the snags. When you graduated, and once you joined the CIA, I was going to read you in on the EW program and set you to work. There are several problems with the neural chip technology, and we had some serious adverse reactions with the first recruits who volunteered to undergo treatment."
"What kind of adverse reactions?"
"Three main issues.
First was due to brain damage, leading to epilepsy. Some small percentage of the first subjects became severely epileptic, fatally in some cases. That's what we call Type I deviants. Type II deviants suffered brain damage to the hypothalamus and developed severe anxiety or depression—sometimes both. A small subset of Type IIs lost their ability to feel normal emotions of joy and love. They're technically Type IIa. Type IIIs can no longer empathize, not recognizing other humans as humans. They focus only on the mission, and see everyone else as mere objects, either in their way or helping them carry out the mission. They're very dangerous—if they lose their programming, they can become mass killers, terrorists, even serial killers."
"They became psychopaths, in other words," Anna offered.
"Precisely. We believe that the treatment and drugs merely exacerbated underlying potentials. These EWs are hard to control. We had to retire some to prevent collateral damage in the general population."
"And by ‘retire,’ I take it you mean execute?"
"In a manner of speaking, yes. It was a sad side effect of the treatment."
"More than a sad side effect," Anna said. She felt horrible for those who had volunteered, feeling a need to help as a patriotic duty, only to be turned into emotionless zombies or uncontrollable psychopaths who were then executed by the very program that created them.
"They were heroes, even if they did end up being retired," Professor Singer added. "We hated to do it, believe me. These soldiers were our pride and joy at the agency. We hired the best scientists and tech wizards to help us figure it out. We thought we had the problems under control, using the neural chips to selectively alter the motivational centers in their brains. To ensure that if they were ever captured, they'd be able to resist torture—even the worst pain—and not divulge secret material. Unfortunately, for every EW who was healthy, there were two or sometimes three who had the problems that made them a danger. The biggest danger was that the enemy would find them and use them for their own evil ends. And that's exactly what happened."