The Void Protocol

by F. Paul Wilson

  Ellis did that now. He visualized the arteries running up the inside of the neck and pressed. The guy’s face got this sudden funny look, like he knew something was wrong but didn’t know what. He stutter-stepped yet kept coming, but slower. Another step and he put his free hand to his throat. He must have felt the pressure there, but on the inside rather than outside, and he knew Ellis wasn’t touching him, so he had to be asking himself, What the fuck, man? What the fuck?

  Ellis backed away but not too far. His gift had a range, and got weaker with distance, and he wanted to keep those carotids as flat as could be.

  And now the guy’s face was turning white.

  That’s right, pal. I just shut off the blood flow to your whole head.

  His eyes bulged as he realized something was wrong, really seriously wrong. He stopped coming for Ellis and dropped the knife so he could use both hands to claw at his throat. Very soon his knees gave out and he landed hard. Ellis swore he heard a kneecap crack but the guy was too panicked and his brain too blood-starved to notice.

  Still pulling at his neck, he fell onto his side, where he lay kicking and squirming, and then just squirming, and then nothing.

  Ellis pulled out his phone and checked the time. He hung over the guy and kept up the pressure another full minute before stepping back and dropping onto his ratty sofa. That had taken more out of him than he’d expected.

  He stared at the guy who in turn stared at the dirty throw rug. No sign of breathing, not even a muscle twitch.

  “I did it!” he whispered to no one. “I fucking did it!”

  The door flew open.

  Aw, fuck, did Donato send a second guy? No, wait …

  “Rick?”

  Rick spotted the body, froze for a second, then closed the door.

  “You didn’t!” he said as he squatted beside the guy and checked for a pulse. “Shit, you did!” He shot to his feet, towering over Ellis. “Where are your brains?”

  “Fucker tried to kill me! Look—his knife’s right there!”

  “You could’ve just knocked him out. You didn’t have to kill him.”

  “Why the hell not?”

  “Because he’s a made guy who works for Vinny Donuts, you jerk! So now not only does Donato think you cheated him, you went and offed one of his guys! He’ll turn this city upside down looking for you!”

  “So fucking what? He’s already out for my head. What’s he gonna do? Kill me twice? And besides, no one can say I killed him.”

  “And why not?”

  “Because there ain’t a mark on him. I never touched him. For all anybody knows he had a stroke or a heart attack.”

  “You think that matters to Donato? His kind aren’t exactly into the finer points of forensics. And speaking of forensics, you’ve now got a dead body in your apartment, which means the cops will be looking for you too. What an idiot!”

  “Don’t talk to me like that! Nobody talks to me like—”

  “Well, what else am I gonna call you? How about a fucking idiot?”

  That did it. This asshole had no idea who he was dealing with.

  Ellis stood. “You think you’re so goddamn tough. But you know what? You’re the Titanic and I’m the fucking iceberg. You’re going down, man. Down!”

  With that he jammed down hard on Rick’s carotid arteries. Rick’s eyes widened for an instant, then he stepped in and smashed a fist into Ellis’s face.

  Lights flashed, his ears rang. Ellis tried to reorient himself and apply the pressure again, even harder this time, but his knees were wobbly and his brain felt too scrambled to focus his gift.

  Rick’s voice seemed to come from far away. “Don’t try to pull that shit on me!”

  8

  Laura slouched on the couch next to Marissa, pretending to watch the Mets game with her, but aware of virtually nothing transpiring on the big LED screen.

  Am I doing the right thing? she wondered. Can it be the right when it seems so wrong?

  I need normal inside my house …

  Who am I kidding?

  And that stuff I said about bringing the Outside inside—how stupid was that? I’ve seen things very few people have seen and been places virtually no one else has been. The Outside has taken up residence inside my head.

  “Did you see that, Mom?” Marissa cried. “Everybody shifted right and he pulled that double to left field!”

  “Hmmm? What?” Laura had no idea what she was talking about.

  “You weren’t watching,” she said, getting a bit pouty. “I wish Rick was here.”

  “I do too, honeybunch.” Rick had proved far better at feigning interest in the games.

  “How come I never see him anymore? He used to come a lot. Is he mad?”

  “Oh, no. Anything but. We know he loved the Mets—”

  “Metropolitans, Mom,” she said with infinite patience.

  “Sorry. The Metropolitans.” Not. “I know he really wants to be here.” True. “It’s just … it’s just that he’s awfully busy with his work.”

  She frowned. “Is it because he’s depressed?”

  “Depressed?” Where’d she hear about depression? She’d turned nine over the summer, but still … “I don’t think so. What makes you think he’s depressed?”

  “I don’t know. He just is.” Marissa’s smile broke through. “But I make him happy. I can tell.”

  Laura couldn’t reply right away … couldn’t squeeze words past the lump that had formed in her throat.

  Yes, you do, she thought. You make him happy. And I’m keeping you two apart.

  Marissa filled the silence. “So, next time you see him you tell him I said he should come over for a game. The season will be over soon.”

  After what she’d said today, Laura didn’t know if she could promise that. “I know he wants to, hon.” No lie there.

  “I miss him, Mom. When he’s around I feel …”

  “Feel what?”

  She shrugged. “Like … I don’t know. Like everything’s all right.”

  What was she trying to say?

  “You mean ‘safe’?”

  Another shrug. “Yeah. I guess.”

  She stared at her daughter. Well, that said a lot, didn’t it. That said pretty damn much everything.

  My little work in progress … my little state of becoming … leukemia knocked the world out from under your feet, and that CMV infection almost delivered the knockout punch. No wonder you don’t feel safe, even in your own home—that’s where you got sick.

  Rick had that power when he was on the scene to make you feel things were under control. Even a nine-year-old could feel it.

  Damn me.

  “You know what?” She put her arm around Marissa and hugged her near. “You’re going to call Rick right now and tell him that he needs to catch a game with his old pal, Marissa.”

  Marissa’s face lit up like a Broadway marquee. “Tonight?”

  “No, silly. The game’s almost over. He’ll never make it in time. But ASAP, okay?”

  Marissa hugged her. “Yay!”

  9

  One hell of a day.

  Rick popped the cork on a bottle of Krug and poured half a dozen ounces into a tumbler. Flutes were supposed to be better for Champagne but they didn’t hold enough. He’d always been a beer drinker. Never dreamed he’d turn into a bubbly fan, but ya likes whats ya likes. Besides, he could afford it. No one else to spend it on.

  Yep, one hell of a day.

  First, Laura tells him they’ve no future. Then the discovery of an invisible man. Then Ellis goes and strangles one of Donato’s thugs with his talent. And if that’s not enough, he tries the same thing on Rick.

  Well, Rick put the kibosh on that, but it revealed something about Ellis—guy was a straight-up psychopath. Not the least bit fazed by killing someone, even if in self-defense. At the very least, the first time left you shaken, changed you, no matter how justified you might think you were. It meant you’d crossed a line, one you could never cross
back. You’d taken away someone’s tomorrows—all of them.

  Hadn’t bothered Ellis a bit. Was ready to do it again, to someone he knew, just for calling him out on how stupid he’d been.

  Gonna have to watch that guy.

  Things had gone a bit smoother after he’d straightened Ellis out on what he could and couldn’t get away with, at least with Rick. The two of them had stowed Donato’s boy’s body in the trunk of his own car and left it parked along the curb. Soon enough the city would tow and impound it. Eventually someone at the lot would notice an odor emanating from the trunk of the unclaimed vehicle.

  He’d followed Ellis back to the warehouse, then headed home.

  He took a gulp of Champagne, savored the bubbles fizzing down his throat. Yeah, you were supposed to sip and savor the good stuff. Well, to each his own. My bottle, my Big Gulp.

  The good news was, the nadaný would keep him in contact with Laura. Who knew? Maybe his irresistible charm would break her down.

  Then again …

  He looked around his empty apartment. He was used to empty, used to alone. Good thing, he guessed. Looked like he was going to get more practice. Maybe he should decorate the place a little. The bare walls, the spare furniture … serial-killer décor.

  His phone rang. The ID said Laura. That couldn’t be good. He was pretty sure their I-called-just-to-see-how-you’re-doing days were over, so this had to be serious.

  “Hi, Rick!” Marissa’s voice.

  Cautious warmth seeped into him. “Hi, Marissa. Everything okay?”

  “Yeah! I’m inviting you over to see a Metropolitans game!”

  “Hey, that would be—” Be careful here. “Does your mother know you’re calling?”

  “Yeah, she’s right here. Wanna talk to her?”

  “Maybe I’d better.”

  Laura came on. “Did we interrupt anything?”

  “Not particularly. Thinking of sorting through my thimble collection.”

  “You don’t have a thimble collection.”

  “It’s imaginary. I’ve always wanted one. Actually I’m sorting through my confusion. Marissa just asked me to—”

  “Come over to watch a Mets—”

  “Metropolitans!” Marissa cried in the background.

  “A Metropolitans game at your earliest convenience. I put her up to it.”

  Rick was dumbstruck.

  “Rick?”

  “Sorry, I—did I hear right?”

  “You did. And I’m as confused as you are. I was thinking about what you said earlier and you make a good case, so … let’s see when we can work this out. That is if you can fit a game into your schedule.”

  “I’ll make room.”

  She spoke away from the phone. “Honeybunch, you’re on.”

  A “Yay!” from Marissa.

  Rick’s throat constricted. He loved that kid. Too bad he couldn’t work a similar bond with her mother.

  “We’ll talk tomorrow,” Laura said.

  “You bet we will.”

  They ended the call. Rick couldn’t help a smile. A little of the hell had just gone out of his day.

  THEN

  FORT DETRICK

  FREDERICK, MARYLAND

  DECEMBER 18, 1986

  “The Pentagon is extremely impressed with your primate trials, Doctor LaVelle,” said Benjamin Greve from his usual position behind the desk in the back office.

  Maureen sat stiffly in her chair. After dozens of meetings with the man over the past two-plus years she remained uncomfortable in his cold, serpentine presence.

  “The Pentagon? The whole Pentagon? I thought this was hush-hush.”

  Greve’s laugh sounded more like a cough. “Of course not the whole Pentagon. Only a handful of higher-ups are even aware of the existence of melis; even fewer know what it can do.”

  Well, she was a long way from knowing all it could do, but Maureen had proven beyond a doubt that it increased the intelligence of the offspring of melis-treated squirrel monkeys and macaques. Thirty percent increase in the former, and a good fifty percent in the latter.

  “We’ve still got a ways to go.”

  She’d spent over two years now working with melis and monkeys. Their gestation and developmental periods were so much longer than rats and mice and she found that frustrating. Too much waiting around before the monks were ready for testing.

  “A ways to go till when?” Greve said.

  “Well, I assume human trials are dancing in someone’s head down there in Arlington.”

  “Like visions of sugarplums.”

  Knew it. She’d suspected all along where melis was headed and wasn’t sure she wanted to be a part of it. Making monkeys smarter, fine. Making children smarter, fine, but not without knowing the mechanism of how their intelligence increased. They’d done all sorts of scans, and even sacrificed a number of the melis offspring without finding any discernible changes.

  “Well,” she said, “they’ll all just have to wait until we do chimp studies, and we haven’t even started those.”

  Greve tapped the desk. “We’re bypassing chimps and going straight to humans.”

  Maureen stiffened in her chair. “You can’t do that! It’s too soon.”

  “The higher-ups are impatient. We’re all primates and since there’s been not a single complication with the monkeys—”

  “Moneys and humans occupy two entirely separate branches of evolution. You can’t extrapolate.”

  “Well, it’s not your decision. A small trial has been set in motion. We will be using federal prisoners.”

  “You mean pregnant federal prisoners.” Maureen felt queasy.

  “Of course. That’s the whole point.”

  “How are you going to get them to agree? Shorten their sentences?”

  His eyes widened behind his wire-rimmed glasses. “Agree? Only a handful of people will know about this, certainly not the prisoners.”

  Maureen couldn’t believe this. “They won’t know they’re being dosed?”

  Greve gave her an are-you-crazy? look. “Tell them we’re going to try to change the brains of their unborn babies? Of course not. Some of them wouldn’t care, but none of them can be trusted to keep their mouths shut.”

  “But what if something goes wrong?”

  “Nothing will go wrong.”

  “But what if it does?”

  A wry twist to his lips. “Well, it’s hardly a big loss, if you know what I’m saying.”

  Maureen shot from her seat. “I know exactly what you’re saying, and I’m out of here.”

  “That’s not an option,” Greve said as she marched toward the door.

  “Watch me.” She pulled it open and found the hulking, ever-lurking MP blocking her way. “Let me by!”

  Behind her, Greve said, “You can’t opt out, Doctor LaVelle. You’re in too deep. You may be an independent civilian contractor, but that doesn’t mean DoD can’t ruin your life. You have no idea how miserable your future can be.”

  She kept her back to him. “I’ll deal with it.”

  “Come, come. I don’t like to use threats. I much prefer the carrot to the stick.”

  “You haven’t got a carrot for this.”

  “How about the origin of Substance A … your melis?”

  She turned to face him. “Don’t try lying to me. You said I wasn’t cleared.”

  “You weren’t, but I anticipated resistance on your part, so I finagled a clearance for you. I told the powers that be that you already knew more about the substance than anyone on the planet and so it was only right you be apprised of its origin.”

  She wanted so much to know. However …

  “That’s all well and good, but it won’t make a difference.”

  “Ah, but it will. Once you know, you’ll change your mind.”

  Maureen very much doubted that. Even if melis came from Mars or the Moon, she wasn’t going to test it on unborn children.

  She folded her arms across her chest. “Okay. Tell me
.”

  “Oh, I can’t tell you. Words are completely inadequate where Substance A is concerned. I’ll have to show you.”

  “And when will that be?”

  He rose behind his desk and gathered his papers. “Today. Right now, in fact. I have a car ready.”

  Nonplussed, Maureen took a step back. “Wait … what … now?”

  “Yes. I’m not letting you out of my sight until you’ve seen the source. After that, you’ll be on board.”

  Don’t count on it, buster. She’d play along, see the source, and then it would be sayonara, Fort Detrick and USAMRMC.

  * * *

  Greve did indeed have a car ready—a big black Suburban with tinted windows. The driver held the door for her; Greve let himself in on the passenger side. When the doors were closed, the dark tint reduced the bright daylight outside to a moonlit night. A similarly tinted privacy glass had been raised between the front and rear seats.

  “Where are we going?” she said as they started rolling. “The Pentagon?”

  “I can’t tell you,” Greve said and handed her something. “Put this on.”

  “A mask? No way.”

  “Cooperate and graduate, Maureen.”

  He’d never used her first name before. It put her off balance. And on edge. Her few friends called her Moe. No one called her Maureen.

  “You have such a way with words, Agent Greve.” She hit the designation extra hard.

  “I’m not playing games here. You’re cleared to see the source but not to know where we keep it.”

  She wondered what he’d do if she tossed it back at him and told him to shove it. But she’d never been the rebellious type. And she wanted to see the source of melis—needed to know its origin.

  “Oh, all right.”

  She slipped the padded sleep mask over her head and adjusted it. Not so bad.

  “Lean back, relax,” he said. “Catch some shut-eye if you want. We’ve got three hours to kill.”

  She was too wired to sleep.

  Three hours from Frederick, Maryland … that covered a lot of ground, especially if she couldn’t tell which direction they were headed. Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Richmond, West Virginia, Ohio—could be anywhere.