by Dom Testa
And yes, it was freaky as hell. I’d like to say I was mostly used to it by now, but, as you can imagine, it was still a jolt. It always helped if there was either a witness who could fill me in on the final hours, or a recording. It looked like I’d be relying on the series-8 audio to fill in my missing gaps this time.
About five minutes dragged by. I was still cold, but also beginning to sweat. Nerves will do that to you. I may be slightly conditioned to absorb a killing, but I wasn’t superhuman; I still got nervous.
Then I heard the sound of a cart rolling into the room. It reminded me of the cart our middle school janitor would wheel around the hallways, laden with his cleansers and tools. When this one came into my peripheral vision, I expected to see some sort of hammer or saw, or something dreadful. Deeply sick killers like Deele often felt they had to make some sort of statement.
When I saw what he had, my breath caught in my throat.
It was a terrarium, the kind you see in pet stores for keeping hamsters. But this one did not have a hamster.
It housed four large, brown spiders. They each had a leg span of about five or six inches, with soft, fine hairs along those legs. They didn’t appear happy. That made five of us.
I couldn’t see Deele, but he’d walked up behind me and now spoke in a soft voice.
“You might remember I told you I started collecting poisonous spiders when I was a child. And in the last two days I’ve added these beauties for my collection. So, yes, you can add illegal smuggling to my list of crimes.
“Your new playmates are members of the genus Phoneutria. That’s a Greek word, Mr. Thomas. It means murderess. I mean, isn’t that just perfect?”
My voice came out in a croak. “Yeah, it’s wonderful.”
He laughed, his voice still soft. “Their more common name is the Brazilian Wandering Spider. Some call it a Banana Spider. And you have every right to be afraid. These lovely creatures are considered to be among the most deadly spiders on the planet. Now, of course, you’d probably be okay if one bit you and there was time to get you to a hospital for some antivenom. But, sadly for you, you’re all tied up at the moment. And I doubt you’ll be limited to just one bite.”
I did everything I could to hold back an audible groan; I hated giving Deele any satisfaction. Which, when you got down to it, was stupid, because he was about to get loads of satisfaction whether I made noise or not.
Spiders didn’t terrify me like they did some people. But I didn’t enjoy finding one in my bed, either. And I certainly never wanted to come across something that looked like this, let alone a four-pack. All I could do was eye them and try to control my breathing.
“You know what I love about these beautiful specimens?” Deele said. “They don’t bother with traditional spider activities like building webs. No waiting around for them, just hoping something will fly into their trap. No, take a good, long look at these magnificent animals. They’re hunters. They move about on the jungle floor, looking for something good to eat. That’s where the wandering part of their name comes from.”
Now Deele moved to my side and knelt, looking into the terrarium. He seemed to be mesmerized by his four new pets.
“I’ve seen some other poisonous spider bites, how the infection grows and the pain they can inflict.” He turned to face me. “But I’ve never sicced a spider on anyone before. You’re like a test subject so I can see just how bad it is. You know, without having to watch some dumb video.”
I tried to keep my voice calm. “And how many do I have to fend off?”
“How many do you see?”
I turned my head back so I faced the ceiling. “I’m guessing I won’t get off as easily as Peter Parker.”
Deele laughed. “No, you will certainly not turn into a superhero. Sorry.”
He stood up. “Let’s see what happens.”
There was a time, not long after I broke the news to Christina about what my job entailed, when she asked me a question I could never truly answer. She wanted to know how I prepared emotionally for death.
Perhaps I always prepared the same way. Perhaps it was different every time, depending on the method and the surrounding circumstances.
But, I explained to her, the actual act of death and its associated preparations were always lost in the lights-out period. Since it happened after I’d uploaded, my memories were reset, and I’d never recall how it came down at the time.
It’s something I’ve thought about. And it’s not like I’m some kind of expert; the fact that I don’t remember my death scenes removes that possibility. But how I prepare doesn’t matter, and it couldn’t possibly be helpful as a primer for anyone else. I get to do it over and over again; it may be damned terrifying, and it may be more painful than most endings, but somewhere in my mind I know it’s temporary, and I know I won’t remember the pain. That tiny edge gives me the strength I’m not sure anyone else would have.
Like almost everything else with the investment program, it makes me a cheater.
This time, lying on the table as Deele and his cronies began preparing to serve me up to a handful of deadly spiders, my thoughts happened to turn to the same source of serenity I often fell back on.
Christina.
I closed my eyes for a moment and conjured an image of her face. If there was anything good from this failure, it was the knowledge I’d see her again in just a few days.
Before I left Washington again on a mission to stop Jason Deele. If necessary, to kill him.
He spoke again. “I guess I’m so curious about this, and I’m hoping you are, too. Come on, open your eyes, Mr. Thomas.”
I did. The first spider, the largest, was now in a foot-tall glass tube. Deele brought it over and rested it on my right bicep. There was now just a thin piece of glass between the spider and me.
“I’ll need to get him sufficiently worked up,” Deele said. “Here goes.”
He slid the bottom panel of the tube away, and suddenly I felt the feathery touch of the eight legs on my arm. The spider froze, probably as scared as I was. If that was possible.
Now my breathing picked up again, and I wondered if I might hyperventilate. I heard short, barely-audible gasps, like a child beginning to wind up into full whiny mode, and realized it was me. I tried to relax.
Until Deele shook the glass tube, then tapped on my arm in front of the spider’s gaze. It didn’t have any effect; the jungle killer seemed confused, backing up against the tube, and then finally raising its front legs.
I couldn’t watch anymore.
“They’re basically timid creatures,” Deele said in his soft voice. “They really only attack if they feel threatened. So let’s threaten the little guy.”
That’s when I felt the bite. It was a sharp pain, and I sucked in a mouthful of air. In a matter of moments I felt a burning sensation in my arm. It quickly began working its way toward my shoulder.
“That’s one,” Deele said. He slid the glass bottom back under the spider and lifted it away. Then he leaned over to examine the puncture marks.
“Fascinating,” he murmured.
A minute later he was back with another spider. This time the canister was placed on my chest. And this spider was apparently ready to fight; the bite happened in less than ten seconds.
There was a third. And a fourth.
And there were shock waves of pain.
I heard Deele’s voice again. “I think we’ll let you sit with that for a bit. It might take a second round.”
Then his face appeared above me as I labored to breathe through the shock.
“Too bad we won’t get to fly again.” He smiled. “But at least you won’t need that helmet.”
27
I woke up in a familiar place, along with a headache that had also become routine.
The basement lab at Q2 headquarters didn’t have much personality to it, although I’d made the request multiple times. The people with the checkbook didn’t seem to think it needed warmth. To them it served it
s purpose and that was good enough.
But here I was, so something had gone wrong. My last memory was of lying on my bed in a hotel room in Paraguay, uploading. For the time being I assumed I’d been killed in the line of duty, but hey, sometimes it was just a routine car accident. I’d never know until I went to debriefing. Hopefully there’d be enough of a recording to catch up.
I recognized a friendly voice.
“Hello again, Mr. Swan. Welcome back.”
It always took a moment to get the vocal cords up to speed, but I eventually croaked an answer. “Hello, Sherilyn. Long time no see.”
She was my favorite lab tech, the one who’d most often nursed me back into shape over the years.
“I’ll let you have a couple minutes,” she said. “Then we’ll go through the checkup. Here, take a sip of water first.”
A straw was placed on my lips. It was cool and delicious.
Over the next fifteen minutes I got the feel for what it was like to exist in this new body. On first examination it felt strong, but they almost always did. I felt a chipped tooth on the left side, and the nose had most definitely been broken at some point. Maybe more than once.
When it was time to sit up, Sherilyn helped me. I was a little more stout than usual this time. Sherilyn told me I was now 5-foot-9, and a quick glance down the length of the body reminded me of those guys who do the rings during Olympic gymnastic competition. It was that kind of stout.
I could live with that.
Actually, I had to live with that. I didn’t get to choose my own bodies.
Next came the short, easy walk. The muscles felt okay, but the guy had experienced at least one round of knee surgery. The scar was impressive, but didn’t seem to impact my mobility.
“Try doing a few stretches, and some range-of-movement exercises,” Sherilyn said.
“Seems okay,” I said, testing the limits. “I’ll need those special headache pills, please. That didn’t used to be a thing, but it’s happened a few times in a row now.”
“How bad?”
“Just annoying.”
She pursed her lips. “Probably nothing important. I’ll be right back.”
What I didn’t verbalize was the new feeling I had. Other than the headache, my cognitive abilities seemed to be ahead of the usual pace. Devya Nayar had insisted that she’d made improvements. I didn’t know if this was a product of those changes, or if I’d managed to somehow secure a body that just naturally acclimated better and faster.
And the cynical side of me wondered if those improvements were too little, too late.
By the time Sherilyn returned with the pills and more water, I’d repeated all of the exercises and had started on some of the more difficult cognitive tests. Those took more time than the physical checkups, and with good reason; an agent had to not only be able to get out of danger with their brawn, they had to be able to think their way out, too.
I spent hours with Sherilyn and two other techs, going through everything on the checklist. Eventually they gave me a thumbs-up, and I went directly to one of the sleeping pods for a good three hour nap.
Quanta would meet with me after I’d caught up on the case. It began with written reports from Gamez in Paraguay, including her actual observations and her speculation. Those helped to fill in the blanks from the lights-out period. It ended with the disgusting audio captured by a series-8 card during my subsequent execution at the hands of Jason Deele.
He’d killed me with spiders? I’d been through a lot over the years, but this was a new one.
Sick bastard.
Gamez made it clear she was pissed that Quanta’s agent had acted impulsively, forcing her to place her own assistant in danger. Apparently Peach had joined me for a raid on Deele’s lab in Asunción, which, although ultimately deadly for me, had resulted in Peach getting away with important lab samples. I’d be briefed on those later by Quanta.
I listened back to my final conversation with Deele at least five times, but only suffered through the actual spider bite segment once. Nobody needs to hear their own death more than that.
I tried parsing as much as I could from the madman’s words. I was drawn to his little speech about evolving from the distractions, as he called them, into food production—a more grownup calling, he reasoned.
To understand that his plan to poison food crops was motivated by a desire to hurry up the goddamned process was revolting. But what might be within his words that could help to track down his primary stash?
He’d basically spelled it out for me with one sentence as I lay strapped to the table: I’ve got a vacation cabin that needs my attention.
Was that an allusion to something important? Was he just being cryptic for the sake of drama?
When I got the call to join Quanta in her office, I gathered my notes and took the stairs to the fourth floor. I noted the impressive leg strength in my new model.
The boss sat at a round table in her office. Poole was beside her.
“Ladies, good afternoon,” I said, taking the chair across from them.
“No problems with this investment, I take it?” Quanta asked.
“Your people did good this time,” I said. “I feel like my eyes are too close together, but I’ll get used to it.”
Quanta ignored the sarcasm, but I saw Poole absorb my observation. She was intrigued by the whole process, but rarely asked personal questions, especially in front of the boss.
“So where are we with Jason Deele and Jaclyn Stone in the last three days?” I asked. “They’re back in the States, I presume.”
“Arrived last night,” Poole said. “But neither have been seen since they climbed into a car at Houston’s airport.”
“We have plenty, obviously, to pick up Jason Deele,” Quanta said. “And we certainly will. But I don’t want to simply arrest him for the murder of an agent in Paraguay or even the death of Agent Culbertson. Not yet.”
“What specifically are you looking for?” I asked.
“For one thing, a direct tie between the poisoned crops and his supply. We’re hoping he’ll lead us to his official stash so we can prepare a full case on him.”
I frowned. “I thought I found the connection in the lab in Houston. And what about the samples Peach took out of the Asunción location?”
Quanta shook her head. “This is where Deele and Dr. Stone have been clever. Those strains are similar to what was used in Iowa, but they’re not an exact match. Thanks to the samples you’ve acquired on two continents, we’ve been able to combine research between Sarah Eklund and our people on the 2nd floor. We can give you some notes to read on the plane, but I believe Dr. Eklund will do a better job explaining it to you.”
“All right,” I said. “Any more news about Deele’s actions in Paraguay?”
“No. After the scrape with you he disappeared for a couple of days. We’re concerned he may have been plotting his next move in South America. Perhaps Brazil or Argentina. Agent Gamez has a contact within the Argentinian Ministry of Agriculture. She’s there right now, working on it.”
“She’s an interesting character,” I said. “Someday I’d like to hear the story of how you met.”
When she didn’t answer, I added, “Please have her pass along my appreciation to Peach. I don’t know his real name, but he did a great job. She must be proud of him.”
Quanta said, “Oh, I know she is. That’s her son.”
Before I could leave I was ordered to spend a half-hour with Miller. It was standard procedure, and even I agreed it was a good idea. When your mind is continually transferred from one body to another, it’s probably smart to make sure that mind isn’t veering off the road.
Which, truth be told, had been my biggest fear from the beginning. The brief time I spent with Devya Nayar didn’t exactly fill me with confidence. But so far in this body I had begun to feel normal at a faster clip, so maybe she’d swapped a couple of variables in the equation and was indeed working to prevent me from becoming a monste
r.
Miller started with my gruesome execution, and the question was interesting.
“Does the manner of death play a part in your recovery in the next body?”
I squinted at him. “Do you mean if I get shot, is it easier to get back up to speed than if they cut my throat?”
“Or slowly poison you with spiders,” he added. “Yes. Have you thought about that?”
“Well, yes and no. You know I’m pushing hard for God Maker to get the entire experience uploaded, so we can eliminate the lights-out period. But then I wonder if the actual murder would be too horrific to ever get past.”
“So although you think you want the whole experience, you’re saying you really don’t.”
“I’m saying it would be nice to be able to cut and paste the parts of the experience that would be helpful, and to delete the parts that would make me a drooling idiot. Although drooling idiot probably isn’t in the psychology handbook.”
“No, that wouldn’t be very compassionate.”
“But going back to your question,” I said. “I’d say no. Maybe at first it played a part in acclimating to my new body. Now it’s like swapping your car lease every so often.”
He looked down at his notes as he responded. “You don’t really believe that. I’ve known you for a long time, Swan. We wouldn’t have had all these talks over the years if it was that simple to you. So why are you avoiding the question? It’s not really like you.”
I remained silent for a moment before answering. He was right. It wasn’t simple for me at all. In fact, it was mind-blowing in its complexity. Wrapped up in all of it was my burning desire to understand the transition across that threshold. To know what my parents had experienced, to know what my sister experienced at that very moment. Would I be able to feel they’re in a good place? Or any place, for that matter.
Would I get the satisfaction I hungered for? Would this particular search, like my obsessive hunt for Beadle, ever bring the results I so desperately wanted?