Someone yanked the doctor out of the way and the guards piled back on, trying to battle Scott to the ground, to get him pinned. "Don't hurt him!" the doctor cried out, watching as men dove onto him from every direction, doing all that they could to force him back down. There were so many, he lost sight of the dead man. The fighting seemed to stop then and the soldiers all began to slowly unpeel themselves from the pile. They stepped back, waiting for the last layer of guards to get up and reveal the crazed man who'd fought them all off. As they last of them got up, they stared in wonder at a pile of empty clothing on the floor. A soldier's uniform shirt, riddled with bullet holes and dried blood. Uniform pants, still dirty from the muddy fields of the canal. The dead man was gone.
"Look around," someone said. "He's got to be here somewhere."
They searched under the trucks and among the dead bodies until a scream erupted from outside the building. A sheet-white nurse staggered through the door and said, "A naked man just ran past me into the woods. I don't know where he came from. He didn't come from anywhere. He just appeared out of thin air."
They found him shivering underneath a tree. The doctor injected him with a second needle of morphine and put his lab coat over Scott's shoulders, telling him, "Everything will be all right, son. Just take it easy. No one wants to hurt you."
Scott clutched the lapels of the coat tight around his chest and said, "I don't feel very good." Blood spilled out of his nostrils and Scott's eyes rolled up in his head before he dropped to the ground.
"Is he dead?" one of the guards said. "Again, I mean?"
The doctor bent over Scott and checked his pulse. He shook his head and barked, "Get this soldier back inside and contact base command. I need to speak to General Pershing immediately."
Half an hour later, a long trail of black cars arrived. The man who stepped out of the second car made all of the soldiers there snap to attention. General "Blackjack" Pershing, Commander-in-Chief of the American Expeditionary Force, did not bother to return their salute. He was too focused on the building in front of him and walking too fast. He called out to the first guard standing by the doorway, "Where is he?"
The guard opened the door and pointed inside at the young, frightened-looking man inside who was staring transfixed at the rows of dead bodies. He turned as the General came through the door and whispered, "Was I one of them? I can't remember anything before I woke up."
The General took off his hat and took a deep breath. Whatever he'd expected from the doctor's frantic phone call, this wasn't it. He scratched his head and said, "Well, that is what they tell me, soldier. So either someone seriously screwed up in that evaluation or you are a goddamned walking miracle." Pershing bent forward to look at the bullet hole in Scott's shoulder and said, "Do you mind if I take a better look at that?"
"No," Scott said.
Pershing touched the bullet hole and turned him side to side, looking at it from front to back, realizing he could wiggle his finger at one end and could see it from the other. There were a dozen other bullet wounds tattooed on Scott's chest and a raw, jagged wound across his cheek. "Let me ask you something. How do you feel?"
"Cold," Scott said, pulling the doctor's jacket tighter around his chest.
Pershing jerked his head at the door and said, "Get this man a blanket and some decent clothes!" He pulled a white handkerchief out of pocket and swabbed it across his face, feeling it get damp in his hand. "What can you tell me about all of this?"
"Nothing," Scott said. "I told you, I don't remember anything." He looked down at his dog tags and said, "Not even this name. It means nothing to me. I don't even know if these are mine."
"Are you certain?" the General said.
"Yes, sir," the soldier said meekly.
"All right. Give me a little while, I'm going to have to make some phone calls. There are people in Washington who are going to be very curious about you. Very curious."
Scott looked out at the bodies again and said, "Take your time, sir. I'm not going anywhere."
They sailed him back to the United States aboard an experimental submarine.
The sub docked in New Jersey and James Scott was escorted off of the sub by a group of men in dark suits and fedoras, clutching submachine guns. "Where am I going?" he asked them repeatedly, but none of the men would look at him, let alone speak with him.
They packed him in the back of an Army Jeep and drove him to a small farm outside of Atlantic City where a bi-plane sat idling unsteadily in an unmarked field.
He was packed into the back seat of the plane without a word. As soon as he was strapped down, the pilot pulled back on the throttle and the plane skittered off through the wheat grass and corn stalks. The pilot looked back and said, "Hold on, kid!" just as the plane's engines erupted and they went soaring into the sky.
Scott was made to change planes three times. Each time it was the same, men in suits with large guns who escorted him into his seat without a word. From the sky, he looked down on the landscape below and watched it change from lush green farmer's fields and streams to what looked like nothing but flat red rock.
Despite the wind, the heat soon became so intense that Scott had to pull off his scarf and helmet. He shielded his eyes from the sun as the plane descended into a barren wasteland of remote, flat desert.
The men waiting for him this time weren't wearing suits.
They were dressed in white lab coats and PH gas helmets, loose, rubbery full-face masks with wide glass circles over the eyes and a nozzle fitted to their mouths. Each of them carried guns. There was no plane waiting to take him anywhere, and as Scott climbed down, he was hardly on the ground a moment before the pilot gunned his engine and sped away. Scott looked at the men in the lab coats and said, "So what happens now?" Scott said.
No one answered him. Whenever they breathed, they sounded like a dozen snakes hissing.
They loaded him into a car and drove into the desert until the dust and dirt covering the windshield became so thick they stopped the car every hundred feet to scrape it off. Scott had to cover his face with his shirt as they got out of the car, closing his eyes in the howling wind of sand and dirt. They lead him toward a small cave at the base of one of the tall, flat-topped rock formations and Scott gasped in amazement when the rock walls within slid apart and revealed a pair of elevator doors. He followed the men into the elevator and flinched when they slammed its metal gate shut.
Scott's ears popped as the elevator dropped so far and so fast that it felt like his feet were lifting off the ground. Every time he moved, one of the guards slid their fingers to the trigger of his gun and stared him down. When the doors finally opened, the guards shoved Scott forward into a large cavern, carved into the rock beneath the earth's surface. It was a scientific research facility, with walls formed from jagged limestone and granite.
All he could see were more men in lab coats hovering over scientific work stations and medical equipment. It looked like something he'd only seen on the cover of science fiction pulp magazines. There were terrifying machines that blinked with varying lights, reflecting blues and reds off the limestone walls. Scott squinted as they lead him through the facility and stopped to look inside the last room, the room with the chair.
"What is that for?" Scott said, feeling dread roil in the pit of his stomach.
The chair was large and reclined until nearly flat, with thick leather straps at the neck, arms, and legs, they kind they used in insane asylums to keep maniacs from killing everyone in the building.
The men did not answer him. They pushed him further on, toward a thick steel door that was the size and shape of a bank vault, framed by reinforced concrete. The guards shoved him against the door and said, "Take your clothes off. You're going in the showers. Everything will be explained to you once you are decontaminated."
Scott stood under the hot water, scrubbing his chest. He looked down at the holes there, stopping to watch the soap bubble up from inside them. Water went into the hole in his right
shoulder and trickled out of the other side. He was amazed at first, but soon, the sensation left him feeling too queasy to bear looking anymore.
His clothing was gone when he came out of the shower, replaced by light cotton shorts and a tee-shirt. His boots were gone. Now he had only a cheap pair of slippers to wear, the kind prisoners were issued in a jail.
There was a man waiting for him by his new clothes. He was dressed in a black uniform with the name Finley embroidered across the chest. There were sergeant stripes on Finley's arms and his hair was cut so short it was like a layer of fuzz over his large, misshapen head. Finley glared fiercely at Scott as the man dressed, flexing his hands into fists and cracking his knuckles. There was a long wooden truncheon dangling from Finley's belt, only slightly smaller than a baseball bat.
Scott looked at him and said, "They didn't give you a mask, sarge?"
"My pay grade's not high enough to justify being protected from whatever kind of disgusting poison you got inside you, boy," Finley said. "Don't touch me, don't breathe on me, and don't make me break my nightstick across your head."
"Okay," Scott said. He followed the sergeant to the bank vault door and stood back as he spun the lock and pulled the handle open, revealing a small concrete room with only a thin mattress laying on the floor. Scott leaned into the doorway, looking in.
"Go on now," Finley said. "Get in there."
"There must be some mistake, sir. I'm not a prisoner. I don't deserve this kind of treatment."
Finley wrapped his fingers around the hilt of his nightstick and said, "You seen any decent people raising up from eternity lately, boy? Me neither. Just devils, witches, and voodoo spiritualists possessed by demons. Now get your ass inside."
They began with tests.
They measured the limits of his strength. For short periods of time, he could lift the rear end of a car into the air by just the back bumper, but after that he would collapse on the floor and be too weak to move.
They drew vials of his blood for testing.
They hooked machines to him that measured for radioactivity, electricity, and atomic energy but found nothing. What seemed to truly annoy the researchers was that Scott refused to recreate the act of teleportation. "I don't know how I did it," he insisted. "I can't do what you want me to do."
Statements were read from eyewitnesses at Bellicourt.
The event was broken down moment by moment until someone finally said, "It was the sight of the morphine needle. Perhaps he only vanishes when he is afraid." An idea was formed to recreate just such an experience.
The next morning, Sgt. Finley tapped Scott's metal door with his nightstick and said, "Time for your exercises, Subject 129."
"What the hell are you talking about?" Scott's voice echoed from inside the vault.
Finley bent down to flip open the small meal slot and looked in, saying, "That's your name now. That's all you are anymore, a science project. Now get up."
Scott did not move from his cot. "I'm finished. You people aren't telling me anything, and I need to figure out who I am. I must have family somewhere and I want to be taken to them."
Finley smiled, "Actually, I have a military jacket sitting on my desk right now. It arrived in the mail yesterday. There's all sorts of good information in there for some dead man named James Scott. Would you be interested in seeing it?"
"You're lying," Scott said.
"You willing to risk that?"
"Show me the file."
"Not unless you behave today. Got something special for you. If you want that file, you need to do as you're told."
Scott sighed and got up. "Lead the way."
They walked down the hall toward the room with the asylum chair and Finley said, "Go on and sit down."
"In that thing? Are you crazy?"
"Come on now, boy. The chair ain't gonna hurt you none. You wanna see that file, right? It talks about where you're from, who your relations are. It's good stuff."
"Are you sure?" Scott said.
"Of course," Finley said.
Scott tentatively sat down on the side of the chair and looked at the heavy straps. Finley told him, "Yes, I'm gonna have to tie you down, but just for a second or two. They just wanna see if you can escape again."
"I already told them I can't," Scott said.
"I know, I know. Just let them see you try, and they'll make a few notations in their whatevers and I'll go grab that file." Finley smiled again as Scott finally leaned back into the chair and he draped the first heavy strap across the man's chest. Once Scott was fastened down, Finley moved quickly to buckle down his waist, arms and legs. "How's that feel?" Finley said.
"Tight," Scott grunted, trying to breathe.
"Can you get free?"
"No," Scott said. "You know I can't. Can I get out now?"
"Not just yet," Finley said, smiling widely as he clapped his hand on Scott's forehead. "They got a surprise for you today. Hey doc?" Finely called out, "He's all tied up. You can bring in your machine."
"What machine?" Scott said, trying to turn his head.
Wheels squeaked in the hallway, getting closer to the room. Scott squirmed in the chair, turning just enough to see a hooded researcher push an electrical generator into the room. It had a long wooden hand crank and multiple wires that connected to dozens of small suction cups, like a robotic octopus. "What the hell is that?" Scott gasped.
"Hold still, boy," Finley said. The pleasure in his voice was unmistakable as he picked up one of the suction cups from the tray and stuck it onto Scott's forehead. "Man, you look comical like that."
"What are you doing to me?" Scott cried.
The researcher and Finley worked quickly, sticking suction cups to Scott's neck and chest and belly. Finley yanked Scott's shorts and underwear down, exposing him enough to stick suction cups on his thighs and above his groin. Once all the cups were attached to him, Finley picked up a wooden dowel from the tray and said, "Bite this."
"Go to hell, you maniac! I want to get out right now! I want to see General Pershing this instant!"
Finley smiled again and waved the dowel in front of his face, "This here is to keep you from chewing your tongue off, stupid. I'd bite down on this if I was you."
The hooded researcher nodded at Finley and picked up his notepad and pen. The sergeant rested his arms on the electrical generator and said, "Now listen up. We're gonna crank this here generator up until it kicks on. That's gonna send some electricity through those wires into them suction cups and boy, you are gonna feel it. I promise you that. Now, we're gonna keep doing this, increasing the power each time, until you decide you want it to stop."
"How…how do I do that?" Scott whimpered.
"By teleporting out, course," Finley said.
"I can't!" Scott shouted, thrashing against his bonds. "I don't know how to!"
"Yes you do, Subject 129," Finley said. "Stop wasting everybody's time and get to it already. Last chance. No? All right. Here goes nothing."
Finley grabbed the handle and cranked it down, turning the wheel until bright flashes of blue and white electrical current sparked along the wires, making the suction cups attached to Scott's skin start to vibrate. Scott crunched his teeth on the wooden dowel and clenched his eyes shut, but Finley kept turning the crank faster and faster until arcs of electricity began shooting through his body. Finley cranked the generator so hard lights began to flicker in the outside room, and the rubber of the suction cups started to melt on Scott's skin. By the time Finley stopped, Scott was sobbing for mercy.
Finely wiped his forehead on his shirt and said, "Phew, wasn't that fun? Dang, but we're just getting started. Hey, you ready to teleport yet?"
Scott moaned and plead with the dowel in his mouth, and Finley looked at the researcher and shrugged. "I guess he wants to keep going."
Subject 129 woke in his bunk hours later. He was burned from the electrocution and his entire body ached, but as he rolled over, he saw there was a thin manila envelope next to his
mattress that made him sit immediately upright. He tore open the flap and saw nothing but a single sheet of paper stuffed inside. The name James Scott was typed across the top. He read down.
Hometown: New York City.
Date of Enlistment: 1917
Place of Death: St. Quentin Canal.
He turned the paper over in the dim light to inspect the other side, but it was blank. There was nothing else. He crumpled the page into a ball and tossed it across the room in disgust, then collapsed back on his bunk and screamed as loud as he could until his voice gave out.
The bullet holes in his chest were now jagged scars the size of quarters and he ran his fingers down over them, playing with the ridges of raised skin. He checked each scar, imagining himself playing checkers with them, jumping from round hole to round hole. It was a morbid thing to do and tears were spilling down his face by the time he finished. He raised his left hand to wipe them away and saw a scar there he'd not seen before, one that looked older than the others.
It was something left by a past he could not recover. He wondered how it got there and what he'd been doing at the time. Had he hurt himself at his old job, or caught his hand on a fence catching a ball? Had he done it as a child while playing with his brother, if he even had a brother? Had he gotten it doing something wrong?
He played with the scar, turning his hand over and over, when he saw a small ring of pale skin around his left ring finger that was rubbed smooth. It was like the skin of a man who'd worn a wedding ring for a long time and never taken it off.
He saw her face, then.
He saw her smiling at him. Crying against him. Lying beside him, sleeping. He could see her eyes widen as they made love. Feel her arms wrap tightly around the back of his neck, begging him not to enlist in the war.
Agent Omega: You Only Live Forever Page 2
