Controller: Controller Trilogy, Book 1

by Stephen W Bennett

  The stairwell doors at each floor swung inward at each floor, and there was a loop handle with a thumb activated latch on the public hallway side of those doors. At the top two floors above thirty-eight, Grayson shoved multiple mop and broom handles through the doors to help hold the doors closed a bit longer from stairwell access. He found electrical power cable on a spool, which he used to tie the loop handles to opposing doors in the same hallway and also tied them to fire hose fixtures on the opposite walls.

  To open the doors into the stairwells, Stiles and his men would have to break the mop and broom handles and pull off the electrical wiring to pry the doors open to exit the stairwells at the top. He had to do this on both service floors above the highest elevator stop on the thirty-eighth floor. The men would have had to run up the stairs from the ground floor. He figured most criminals weren’t known for their athletic stamina, or they wouldn’t have chosen the physically easier lifestyle of crime’s easy money. They would likely arrive winded.

  Next, he rushed to relocate the laptop and its power cord, and the transmitter. The latter required a brief interruption of transmission when it was powered down, and he disconnected the antenna cable to reroute that as well. He placed them all on top of a cable run overhead, and out of sight from anyone standing below. He restarted the loop transmission to continually reinforce the Immunity signal, which had ten or twenty minutes of latency after the signal ended.

  He found some white spray paint and painted the black antenna cable below where it passed through the ceiling of the Telecommunications room. Then he “sacrificed” a similar black coax cable from some other equipment, whose purpose eluded him, just to insert the cut end into a hole he poked into the ceiling with a screwdriver, ten feet from the actual cable. He left the dummy coax connector hanging where the transmitter had originally been. That was to convince Stiles the transmitter was no longer in the room at all and might be on the rooftop now.

  His planning included a scenario where the men with Stiles would penetrate this level, and he’d fight them off as they left the stairwells. When the police arrived, the officers would require the protection of the Immunity signal for long enough to avoid becoming Stiles puppet warriors. Hoping to speed up that intervention, he was about to place a call to his former LMPD boss, Captain Franklin. However, as Robert Burns nearly wrote, the best-laid plans of men and mice often go awry.

  The lights suddenly went out, and the sounds of air circulation went silent. Emergency lights came on in each corridor, as designed when the power failed, and outside light filtered through from outside windows and open office doors.

  The laptop had battery power for several hours. Unfortunately, the transmitter did not. The Immunity transmission stopped, and now there was only the latency of the human mind’s ability to retain the ability to distinguish between external thoughts and the person’s own mental processes. Grayson now had no more than twenty minutes before Stiles gradually regained mind control over those within range of his portable transmitter. His henchmen had apparently reached the subbasement level where power lines entered the building. Calling the police now would only add their guns to help Stiles.

  ****

  From her location near the underground garage elevators, Stacy watched in surprise when a brown sedan and a white panel van raced down the ramp into the parking garage less than a minute behind her arrival. She hadn’t called her father to tell him she had just arrived because she was afraid he’d come down to make her leave, and expose himself to whatever threats Stiles sent to kill him.

  That appeared to be a good decision as she saw a face behind the wheel of the sedan, which she had committed to memory from pictures her father had given to his family. She ducked as it drove past the car, the driver apparently not noticing the red Dodge Charger backed into a parking spot. The sedan and van screeched to a stop a dozen cars down the lane, close to another gap in parking spaces where there was a maintenance access door labeled Danger, High Voltage. Stiles was here, and the van that followed close on his bumper must hold more of his men.

  She was here to back up her father, but she had intended to join him upstairs, unaware he had disabled the main elevators. Unfortunately, the bad guys arrived just as she had elected to park in a vacant handicapped slot close to the elevators. She came armed, of course, and she wasn’t alone.

  She had her Dad’s former ankle gun in her pocket, and on the rear seat was Uncle Casey’s 12 gauge shotgun, loaded with deer slugs, and his stainless-steel Marlin 1895SBL lever-action rifle, chambered for the .45-70 U.S. Government cartridge. Casey used both for deer hunting, but he’d not bought the Marlin until after watching Jurassic World. Not that he expected to ever meet a dinosaur in Kentucky; He just thought the short, lightweight rifle looked cool.

  She couldn’t wield all three weapons simultaneously, of course. That’s why Carl was with her. Besides, he’d refused to let her go alone when he saw the guns she removed from her Uncle’s house. He would carry the 7+1 shot Marlin, and she had the pistol and the Remington pump shotgun, with its 4+1 deer slug capacity. They had additional shells in their pockets.

  What to do now was a problem. To reach the two garage elevators or the stairwell next to them meant the gun-toting teens would potentially be visible to those in the sedan and van. The side slide door of the van opened, and three men stepped out, one carrying a long, double-handed tool. Stiles got out of the sedan, with another three men joining him from that car. The man with the tool walked to the maintenance door, which had a heavy padlock on a hasp.

  The tool proved to be a bolt cutter, and with some effort, and two tries, the man cut through the heavy padlock, releasing the slide hasp, and he swung the door open. Inside was a power distribution center. He flicked on the lights and entered, Stiles right behind him, and the three men from the sedan and the other two men from the van stood there uselessly, like a highway work crew watching one man shoveling. They were looking through the door, talking low to one another. Three had obvious guns in their waistbands that Carl and Stacy could see.

  Apparently, Stiles noticed the other five men standing around and looking through the open door behind him. Stacy heard him yell angrily. “One of you damned idiots get back and watch over the bitch. She’s the pawn ticket I might need to get my computer and transmitter back.”

  One of the putative idiots, forgetful of how dangerous Stiles could be if displeased, said, “She ain’t moved a muscle, boss. Besides, won’t the transmitter be dead anyway when you cut the power?”

  “Grayson won’t just hand it over to me shit head. It’s why I brought his wife, to make a trade.”

  With a surge of elation, mixed with fear, Stacy whispered, “He has my mother! She’s inside the van. I’ve got to help her.”

  Carl cautioned her, “We can’t get to the van without being seen.”

  “I have to try. Hand me the shotgun butt first after I climb out.” The windows of the Charger were already down, and the agile gymnast slipped out on the driver’s side, to avoid the risk of a door noise.

  Carl carefully passed her the shotgun, and then pulled his larger frame through the passenger side window. Adjacent vehicles shielded them from view by the men farther up the lane. One of the men was now walking back towards the van, and if Stacy or Carl moved from cover in that direction, he’d see them. They’d have to wait for him to get inside and then rush up, using other cars and the van as cover from the other men.

  Carl was pulling the Marlin through the rear passenger window when he heard Stacy gasp. The left side rear door of the van opened slowly, and a woman’s head appeared, cautiously looking around.

  “It’s my Mom.” Stacy stage-whispered to Carl through the Charger’s open windows.

  The man approaching the van from its right side couldn’t see into its rear, but Barb only had seconds before he’d be in a position to see into the interior.

  Abruptly, with a chime, one of the two garage elevators opened. They served only the garage levels and the
main lobby. Four animated people stepped out, talking excitedly, one of them on her phone. They had been evicted from an upper floor by a man with a badge and a gun, claiming there was some unexplained emergency, telling them they should completely leave the building for their safety. Now the central elevators couldn’t descend, indicating someone had held them on the top floor. People in the middle were stranded unless they used the stairs. Building security had advised them that they would call the police and fire department. Four of those evicted decided to move their vehicles out of the garage, in case there was a fire or bomb threat.

  ****

  Barb had endured the improper touching by the crude talking men that moved her, dressed as she was in the open-backed hospital style gown. Despite their crudity, the handling had been gentle enough. Four men, one of which was Doc Fowler, moved her out the rear exit of the clinic, placing her on impromptu bedding Fowler formed from pillows and folded blankets in a van. She had continued to pretend to be comatose because Stiles had decided a living unconscious hostage was more useful to him than none at all.

  Three men rode in the van, one driving, and two seated on the rear floor to hold her as steady as practical, particularly her head. In crude amusement, they each felt it necessary to prevent her firm breasts from moving as well, each time the van made sharp turns. She was grateful she still had on her adult pull-up, despite it having absorbed urine since her last change, apparently yesterday. At least the fondling didn’t go lower for that same reason. Stiles had sternly warned them to leave her alone, although her current state of sanitation probably wouldn’t have stopped them from taking far greater liberties without that warning.

  It was maddening not to be able to risk opening her eyes as they drove, although she was aware she had been held in Jeffersonville and was now on the way to downtown Louisville. They were going to one of the tallest buildings where Dan had co-opted a mind control transmitter system belonging to Stiles. Oddly, she sensed something mentally comforting, and from conversations she overheard, she learned Dan was broadcasting a mental signal that rendered Stiles’ mind control impossible. At least for a limited radius around the city.

  That seemed puzzling to her because she sensed thoughts from Stiles multiple times. Apparently, he was so accustomed to doing it that he couldn’t easily stop, even when it didn’t work. She experienced it in three distinct modes.

  The strongest thoughts she sensed was when he focused his mind directly on her specifically, to force her to respond to him, such as to open her eyes, or to move. Those were strong and clear in her mind. A slightly weaker mode were thoughts he intended for everyone around him, to affect an entire group. The weakest mode was like overhearing a nearby phone conversation. Not as strong, and intended only for one person, but she still found that it was understandable.

  The oddest part was that she always knew what she sensed in her mind came from Stiles, and seemed as distinctive as his real voice was. She also always knew what direction he was from her, and how far away. On multiple occasions as they drove to Louisville, he attempted mind control of someone, despite it not working. He seldom seemed more than four or five car lengths away, ahead of the van carrying her. She didn’t think the other men sensed this as sharply as she did, but the three men in the van with her mentioned it uncomfortably a few times when they sensed that he had tried to influence them. From their comments, she knew they had never been aware when he entered their minds in the past. They were aware now that it was the new transmission Stiles wanted ended that permitted them to sense the commands from him, but they felt no automatic compulsion to obey. They did obey, however, out of previous conditioning and self-preservation. After years of mind control, they found that obeying Stiles without that compulsion felt natural. He also promised them a lot of money and power over other people he said he could control with his radio system.

  Today they were uncomfortable sensing when he sent his thoughts to them, but talked comfortably about being aware that he’d always had this ability, even though they’d not been able to sense it previously. Stiles had helped them make good money; he had protected these career criminals from the law, and from other unpleasant consequences that followed from pursuing that lifestyle. They didn’t call themselves Tools, a term they’d never heard. Stiles hadn’t shared that unflattering term with them.

  When Barb realized all three men in the van with her had gotten out, she cautiously opened her eyes, finding there was a sticky residue on her eyelids, making it difficult to open them. She managed to get her left eye open and saw she was in subdued lighting, and through the open side door, confirmed her suspicion she was in a parking garage. She used her hand, somewhat shaky, to pull open her right eyelid. Her first deliberate movements since she regained consciousness proved how weak her muscles felt. The comments she’d overheard about being held for weeks told her she needed to move cautiously at first.

  Turning her head, she saw a couple of the men’s backs, apparently watching something, and talking low. She pushed herself to a sitting position on the pillows and blankets and saw her bare feet were close to the rear double doors of what must be a commercial type van. The doors had no windows, but she needed to see what was out there if she wanted to escape. On hands and knees, she quietly turned a door handle and pushed open the right-side door. She saw parked cars, and outside light from the garage entrance shown down the lane, supplemented by fluorescent lights overhead.

  She looked out and scanned her surroundings on each side, looking for where she could go or hide. Hiding seemed pointless so close to the van, so she searched for somewhere to go. That’s when she heard Stiles voice echoing, telling one of his “idiots” to return to the van. She needed to make her move now and had to use the van and adjacent cars for cover.

  She stepped through the open rear door just as a chime sounded, and four people walked out of an elevator a dozen parking spots away. They weren't looking her way and appeared to be having a group discussion. They wouldn’t know what was happening, and the men with Stiles had guns. These strangers wouldn’t rush to help her against armed men. She stepped towards the line of vehicles on the side away from the men, intending to move to the next lane over. The direct route to the elevator would expose her to her captor’s view and might provoke comments from the strangers, drawing attention to herself sooner. Dressed in an old-style hospital gown with loose ties in back, she’d be noticed even in the subdued light.

  Suddenly, the overhead lights went out, as did the light from within the still open elevator. The power was off. Barb only had the indirect glow of outside daylight coming down the ramp to the underground parking garage. Fortunately, her eyes were adapted to dim light because they’d been closed so long, which allowed her to quickly move towards the nearest parked cars and the other parking lane. She wanted to put distance between her and the van.

  She heard the four people from the elevator, one man and three women, make surprised exclamations about the loss of power, their forms outlined against the back glow of outside light. Stepping from between vehicles in the line of parked cars, just this side of the elevators, the figure of a slender woman in genes appeared, who started walking her way.

  Barb moved as quickly as she could towards the next lane, her legs unexpectedly stiffer and weaker than she expected for someone who normally was physically active.

  A man’s voice called out from the other side of the van, “Hey, she’s gone!”

  A deafeningly loud boom startled Barb as it echoed hugely in the garage. She assumed the man approaching the van had fired a shot at her, but the shout of pain came from behind her. It was the same man’s voice.

  The next shout was a female voice. It was familiar. “Mom, run for the stairs. We’ll cover you.” The slender woman was running towards her, holding a long barreled weapon.

  Barb asked uncertainly, “Stacy?”

  ****

  Stacy watched her mother step carefully from the rear of the van, keeping it between her and the men o
ver where Stiles had gone. Abruptly, the ceiling lights went out. She needed to take advantage.

  “Cover me, Carl; I’ll go get her.” She’d spoken low and decided the four strangers from the elevator would deflect suspicion if she seemed to have arrived with them. She stepped out into the parking lane; shotgun held vertically down behind her right leg for concealment. She heard a “snick” sound as Carl moved the safety of the rifle to the off position. They both had rounds chambered.

  She fumbled for a moment to press her safety and heard the man approaching the van shout when he realized their prisoner was gone. As he reached towards the gun in his waistband, Stacy swung the shotgun up and around. He was moving faster now, but he was peering into the van, ignoring Stacy. Perhaps he expected the captive to be hiding inside. He never noticed the slim figure outlined by the glare behind her, with her arms held oddly high. The blast and impact of the slug from the 12 gauge tore into his left side, high on his rib cage. He screamed, dropped his pistol, and crumpled to his knees as he clutched at his side.

  Stacy shouted for her mother to run for the stairs, not realizing her mother didn’t know where they were. Regardless, the instant Barb realized the shooter was Stacy she called her name and started a fast shuffle in her direction. The stiffness dwindled with every step, and the joy of knowing her daughter was safe energized her.

  Stiles orders and the shouts from his men echoed, as Stacy rushed to her mother. There was no time for hugs or greetings. “The stairs are by the elevators, Mom. Carl will cover us while I help get you there.”