Arkapeligo- Rising

by Ma West

  The short man scowled at the baroness and then signaled for the group’s departure, while Big M looked deep into the eyes of his new enemy and slammed his forehead into him, knocking him unconscious. As No Tip lay unconscious and bleeding from the chest, Big M snorted and left at a forced natural pace.

  He awoke to find her side of the bed empty. He shouldn’t have been surprised, but he was, and he was also saddened by it some too. He lifted the covers and looked at the bandages covering his nipple. Some pads had been placed directly over the wound, and tape wrapped across his body, keeping it in place. Some blood had seeped through the dressing overnight.

  “Just in the nip of time for some tea.” The baroness entered wearing a plush, billowy robe tied tightly, along with some tights or leggings—he wasn’t quite sure. She held two cups in her hands.

  He pretended not to hear the “nip” comment and stretched, trying to flex some muscle, and let out a deep “Hell—” but as the word began, his nipple ripped open again, causing his tongue to roll the “l” and drop the “o.”

  “Did you nip well last night?” The baroness smiled, sounding carefree like a teenager enjoying her first romance. “You will need a new nipple bandage.” She put down the cups on a dresser near the bed, opened the drawer, and took out a little white box that contained bandages and other first-aid materials.

  “I’m not sure if it’s a turn-on or not that you need a first aid kit near your bed. What kinda stuff you into?”

  “Nipples, mostly. Sorry, guess that means you’re not my type.” The baroness climbed on the bed and came close to him, placed her arms under his, and sat him up at an intimate range.

  He tried to grab the end of the lace tying the robe shut but was redirected as the baroness pulled his bloody nipple patch off. She giggled childishly at his attempt to play off the pain.

  “So it’s nurse by day, baroness by night. Alter egos can have dangerous repercussions, young lady.”

  “And the nipple calls the rose red.”

  “Not me, just one ego too big for the universe and too small for myself.”

  “If only you had the skill set to match.”

  “Slip off that robe and I’ll show you my skill.”

  The baroness couldn’t hold back a laugh at the line. “Ain’t no bedroom move going to get you into these pants.”

  “So how do I share your pants?”

  The baroness grabbed his hands and placed them over her heart. “The right way.”

  Chapter 3

  The Fog

  The pounding, the fog, the murmuring voices—they all signaled a bad day ahead. The voices’ chattering echoes ricocheted throughout the girl’s skull. She tried to move her arm, but restraints kept it in place. She looked carefully, but the fog hadn’t cleared yet and was too thick to see through. Morning fog never brought good news.

  “She’s foggy again. I can’t believe this.” The words took a while to catch as they bounced unpredictably around her cranial cavity. Assembling them into a thought would still take some effort in the mist.

  A cold wave permeated the fog, turning it blue. She rested for a minute, taking in the beauty of what she was seeing. The fog started to dance, and clumps gathered together as if they were being collected by huge invisible hands molding them to their whim. She felt like she could reach out and touch them, but it was an illusion created by the clumps, for as they continued to amass together, each time was farther and farther out of reach.

  Slowly, a scene formed in front of her. Two people, a man in a uniform and a pretty—if not past her prime—woman stood in a doorway, speaking together. The straightforward body language suggested an intense and engaging conversation, but it was a distraction, and experience had taught her that once she lost to the clouds, it was all over.

  “Look, look, she’s slouching forward. She’s coming around.” The woman in uniform rushed to her side, yelled something, and then left the room in a hurry.

  She turned her focus toward the man as he approached at her side. His voice sent a cascade of echoing bullets into her skull. They came too fast and screechy to be caught, leaving only chaos in their wake.

  The woman in uniform returned with two others, whose uniforms were a different color, and they rushed to her side. They grabbed her, but she resisted, found her leg, and kicked it fervently out and up. It struck something, although she couldn’t tell what. Her arms had been restrained, and as hard as she might try, they weren’t letting go. No wonder, she soon realized, she was strapped down good.

  “Who am I?” The words came loudly and were easy to catch, if not painful. “Who am I?” The words came again. “Who am I?” Again the words came, demanding an answer. “Who am I?” The words came again, and again, and again. The answer, while in her possession, still eluded her. “Who am I?” The words were softer, more patient this time. “Who am I?” The words were almost a whisper. “Who am I?” Then there was an answer: “Daddy.”

  Today was twenty years. For three years, Drexter had assisted the design team, and for seventeen, he had been in charge of development, but now it was judgment day. His stomach twisted, and his heart sank as he watched her get out of the chair. Project Sasha consumed his entire existence, not allowing for a single day off, nor a day of sick leave. Sometimes he envied others, both parents and officers. Officers got to take their leave, and he often heard of exciting debauchery or pleasant, relaxing days with loved ones. Even parents got to take advantage of babysitters, grandparents, and date nights, yet there was none of that for him.

  During the early years, it was especially stressful. There was always some political desk jockey vying for the project’s termination, objecting on some John Lennon idiomatic fantasy ideal. It had cost him his career, and his rank, to save the project, which was all he ever had in his life. Now she was all he had—well her and one other, a secret other. Whenever his desires started to outweigh his resolve, he would find a bit of personal space and escape in a cloud of green smoke or enjoy a special sweet.

  “Sasha, Sasha.” He waited for her eyes to meet his. “Today is the day, Sasha. Today is the day we make that movie I’ve been talking about.” He continued to watch her eyes. The fog was clearing, and he began to see the scared little girl trapped inside. “Sasha, tell me you remember.”

  A faint whisper came from her lips. “Yes.”

  “Good, good. So you remember what you agreed to. You agreed to wear the headband.”

  A monstrous, almost-evil roar erupted from within. “NO.”

  “Yes, Sasha. Yes, you agreed.”

  She again exploded in disagreement.

  “Sasha, I won’t play this game with you, not today. Now you agreed to wear it.” He played an audiotape of the girl’s voice agreeing to wear the headband.

  A much milder sound came from the girl this time. “No.”

  “I am going to put it down here on your side table. Place it on correctly and I will remove the waist restraint. Complete your exercises, eat your nutrition, and then I think we can find some time for fun this afternoon.” He watched her eyes carefully. The answers always lay in her eyes. The fog was her fuse, not designed or built in, just nature’s ways. She would comply. He felt the twist in his stomach start to relax. Attaining the desired performance goals was never difficult. Sasha was the perfect athlete, agile and alert, and she possessed a gracefulness unmatched in the universe. However, getting the desired actions from her was an entirely different matter. Fun was not something she was accustomed to. It was a luxury he kept in reserve for big events, and this morning’s evaluation was such an event.

  She put on the headband and assumed the correct posture to indicate to the operator that she was ready and that the remaining restraints could be released. She stood up, walked over to an exposed closet, and grabbed her exercise suit. “Daddy, I know what I want to do for fun today. I have been thinking about it for a long time, Daddy.”

  “What is it you would like to do today, Sasha?” It was important he continu
e to use her name. It was a form of control, and Sasha was a girl who needed to be controlled.

  “I want to make a friend today, Daddy.”

  The knot in his stomach came back with a vengeance.

  Thanks to a little delay in the recording, the event was going spectacularly. They were on the base’s rifle range, with Sasha currently demonstrating her superior marksmanship skills. She was responding in accordance with the commands, and as predicted, her test results proved astounding. Of course, she was well practiced in each of the drills. Sasha was not a girl made for schooling in the traditional sense. She had instructors, herself, and her classmates, all developed under the same program.

  Drexter had been a rising star, an Ivy League graduate with an enlisted background. As much as he would never admit it in public, being black certainly helped his cause. White politicians were always anxious to be seen with so-called successful minorities, and he used that to his full advantage.

  Initially, this program was supposed to be a stepping stone, but some problems arose with the classmates. An instructor was killed in cold blood. When instructed to terminate the offending classmate, a second broke ranks, terminating a third. It was a massive black eye for an expensive and secret program. Deaths were not easy to keep quiet, and a breach would mean the end of the program. They offered him a nice easy job at the academy. No more a shining star, he pushed and pushed, called in favors, and finally, after talking to the chief of staff himself, won a small victory. The program would be wound down rather than dismantled wholesale—no more classes, no more instructors, no outside contact, just keep the girl from becoming a problem.

  There had already been long discussions over the issue. Social contact was limited to the doctors, his boss, and him. It was a safety issue and would not be negotiated further. Yet he still wanted, wanted to give her just this one. His mind tussled back and forth between following orders and risking it for her. He had a plan, one he had come up with long ago. There was an old VIP shelter in a basement in Manhattan. There was also a girl Sasha’s age in Manhattan, a girl who might be able to relate a little bit to Sasha.

  He remembered the recording as Sasha hit another bull’s-eye. Speaking into it, he explained to the viewing audience: “The initial fear that the subject would lack fine motor skill has not come to fruition. In fact, the subject has shown an extreme increase in her ability to control her fine motor skills.” He barked out a command: “Sasha, flying crane.”

  The girl changed her shooting position to a well-rehearsed pose. Sasha arched her back and threw her left leg up and back, her right arm out, and while facing downrange, fired off a shot that hit the outer ring of the bull’s-eye. She then swung her entire body around and, arching her back with seemingly inhuman flexibility, now faced downrange upside down and fired off another shot.

  “As you can see,” he spoke into the recorder, “Sasha is able to maintain near-perfect steadiness even while in a pose most of us are unable to enter at all. Even more than that, and the true greatness of this project, is Sasha’s ability to process and react faster than any human on earth.” He hoped that his nervousness didn’t come across in his voice, but this was a part in the demonstration that tended to bring about the fog, as it was so termed. He barked another command: “Sasha, identify and engage only blue targets with red centers, and catch.”

  He pushed a button that engaged a string of ten multicolored targets at the far end of the range, moving them at moderate speed from left to right. He also picked up five hackie sacks. He underarmed the first hackie sack, placing it within easy range of Sasha’s free hand. A shot fired just as she caught the small sack. He threw the second one, also underarm, near her outstretched leg. She caught the bag with her foot and fired another shot. A second shot rang out almost immediately afterward. He threw the third bag directly at her, hoping the rapid fire didn’t reveal the much rehearsed aspect of the drill. Amazingly, Sasha raised the weapon out of the way in order to catch the bag with her mouth. She then re-aimed the weapon in her shoulder and fired almost as quickly as her eyes could get downrange. He threw the fourth bag high and fast, uncatchable, except for Sasha, who broke pose and extended the rifle into the air at maximum range. With the rifle butt stock, she intercepted the bag, allowing it to fall into her open hand as she retook her pose. He stretched out his arm and dropped the final bag.

  Two shots rang out as Sasha grabbed the rifle barrel and swung it and her body around. She tossed the rifle forward, landing it softly on the ground. The bag dropped gently on top of the rifle butt stock. Years, actual years, he had spent on this demonstration. It was a delicate matter to find a right setting to avoid bringing on the fog. Leaving her disarmed was also a lesson quickly learned in the experimentation phase of development.

  He swallowed hard and turned his back to Sasha. It was a risk for sure. Normally, he would go through the fog protocol, but today was demonstration day, and he took the risk. “As you can see, the Sasha program has created the world’s most potentially lethal weapon. Sasha correctly identified seven of the ten targets as blue with red in the center.” He moved the camera to zoom in on the targets. “A quick tally shows two shots in the red, three in the black, one shot high, and another one low and left. Clearly, the desired physical attributes have been accomplished, but as we all know, the crux of the matter is of course control.” He brought the camera back and approached Sasha.

  “Sasha, mission accomplished. Report.” He barked the order.

  Sasha exited her pose. Her chest was heaving, and she was perspiring. He looked into her eyes. The fog was there, but still light. He muscled about his best reassuring smile and reissued the order. For a long stretch, nothing happened. Damn, he thought. He was too slow. The fog must have set in while he was doing the wrap-up. He issued the command one more time: “Sasha, mission accomplished. Report.”

  Sasha took a deep breath. “Ten of twelve objectives completed, ready for instructions.”

  “Hydrate and standby.” He moved back to the recorder and finished his well-prepared speech, urging the continuation of the program.

  Daddy was pleased. She could always read that hidden smile. Sure, he had gotten better at hiding it, but Sasha could still read him like an open book. He was worried—he had gotten worse at hiding that. She didn’t think it was the testing or going off base that bothered him. It was her. That was why he was trying so hard to hide it.

  “Sasha, today was . . . is a very . . . important day in the, um, growth of a . . . young adult.”

  He was so nervous, and he only stammered when it was something he didn’t want to talk about.

  They were on the highway now, approaching the city. The skylight beamed as tall in life as it had in heart. Her thoughts of just how many ordinary people were out there distracted her from Father’s relentless verbal roundabouts. “Special people, special adults, special young adults are isolated, I mean, trained. I mean, special, trained, young special adults . . .” What could all those ordinary people be doing? She pictured a man saying goodbye to his coworkers, walking out of the building on his way to hop on the subway toward home. Maybe the wife called and said she had a hard day and wanted him to pick up dinner. A variety of food choices circulated through the image in her head before the man decided and moved on.

  “And that special training is what makes you special. So special that you had to be specially trained individually.”

  Tonight, she imagined on, the man bought some Chinese. The base Chinese was always awful, but she thought it could have been so tasty if cooked by a real Chinese. Her mind’s eye could see him sitting on the subway, with two Styrofoam containers and a small pouch in a plastic bag resting in his lap. He had to bring his computer home today, no escaping work tonight.

  “Now it’s important that we have some . . . unique conditions and, um, unique experiences that make you unique.”

  Father had changed keywords. This could be a long speech. Her daydream continued with a beggar sitting just close
enough to make the man feel uncomfortable. She could see the man wrestling with the morality of the situation. He wanted the wontons, at least one, since he was going to have to work late tonight. The thought of offering the poor man half of the wontons crossed his mind, but he couldn’t think of a way to divide the food in a way that wouldn’t be rude.

  “Now don’t let your uniqueness bother you. Just be . . . aware of others’ uniqueness too. Aware, yes, aware that they are unique too.”

  They were approaching the bridge to take them into the city. The traffic had slowed, as volume was building. She imagined the sub car again. Handing over the whole bag of wontons would of course be the easiest way, for the man had been putting on a few extra pounds lately, and spring was coming. Luckily, his stop arrived before any action was taken, and he was able to disembark with wontons still intact.

  “Awareness is the key, awareness of uniqueness and the, um, special unique awareness of that uniqueness.”

  She saw the man adjust his bag as he trudged down the hallway and up the stairs, out onto the street level. Her mind imagined him taking a deep breath, smelling the flavors of his impending dinner. Then, out of nowhere, a public bus flew in off the street and smashed the man dead center into a light post behind where he was standing. The sudden turn to violence startled Sasha.

  “What, what’d I say?” Father had obviously noticed the startle.

  “It’s nothing. Would you just get to the point, already?”

  “The point is, you need to be aware of yourself and how uniquely different your experience has been. Your new friend will reference many things you haven’t been exposed to yet, and I don’t want you to feel bad about that. It’s just the way it had to be because of the incident and the fog.”

  Father had stressed that word many times before: the “fog.” It wasn’t her fault it happened. It’s just that when things happened, they got foggy, and then she woke up somewhere new. Whether only a few feet away or a few hours later, she never knew how long it was going to last or where it was going to take her. Nor did she know what was causing it. Father had said it was the brain’s way of dealing with the requirements of her job. Well too bad it didn’t come with an off switch, she thought to herself.