Mindjacker

by C. A. Hartman

  She yanked her attention away from the view, refocusing on their task. It was time for the next step. The bedrooms.

  Quinn led Jones to the first of several bedrooms. Linden’s daughter, twelve years old, slept there. The youngest, and least risky. They would do her last.

  In the next bedroom, Linden’s fifteen-year-old son slept quietly in a large queen bed, thick bedding keeping him warm in the dark, well-cooled room, a nightlight illuminating bookshelves lined with video games. Blond hair swept over his face as he breathed steadily, his thin but muscled arm above him and his legs sprawled out, the sleep of someone who’d never had to worry about safety. Jones handed her the injector with its ultra-fine needle. The boy would barely feel it as the sleep agent made its way through his body, enough to keep him dead asleep for hours.

  They wouldn’t need hours. But it was always better to be cautious.

  After she injected him, they closed his door and Quinn followed Jones to the last of the children’s bedrooms. All of a sudden, Jones halted. Quinn stopped too, following his gaze, which looked down to where door met carpet. Flickering light, like a TV was on. The sixteen-year-old could be awake, or had merely been too lazy to turn it off.

  Quinn went in first. Better her than Jones. She was less identifiable than Jones, especially in a wig. She slowly opened the door, preparing herself for any possibility—for him to see her, to shout, to rise up and defend himself. She would have to capitalize on the element of surprise and nick him before he could do anything other than gape at her.

  Her eyes scanned the room until she found Linden’s eldest under his covers, his silent TV flickering and lighting up his sleeping face. Nearby, his window revealed a vast view of the city. His walls were covered not in cheap posters of bands or naked girls, but in edgy art, unframed. And lots of it, almost as if he’d created it himself.

  When Quinn glanced at the TV screen, she saw at least one reason the boy didn’t bother with posters of naked women. He had them on his TV. Lots of them, doing all kinds of things to one another in a hot tub. She glanced at Jones, who stared at the TV. When he sensed her watching at him, he looked embarrassed for a moment and then shrugged. Quinn squelched a giggle.

  Just as she went to deliver the privileged sixteen-year-old his dose of sleepytime, her foot hit something, causing a clunking sound. She froze.

  The kid’s eyes fluttered open.

  Chapter 35

  Pale blue eyes looked up, unfocused and trying to figure out what they were seeing. Then they shifted to Quinn and came into sharp focus, widening with surprise. The teen started, his face turning to a scowl.

  “What the f—”

  Then the blue eyes faded and slowly closed as the boy’s body went limp, the sedating agent having done its job. Quinn waited for a moment to make sure he was out, but his eyes remained closed and his head rested on the pillow, slumbering once more.

  She turned and looked at Jones, whose expression showed a mixture of concern and relief. It was never good for a target or a target’s family member to see a jacker. But that’s what wigs were for, and the boy probably wouldn’t recall her face in enough detail for the police sketch artists to do any real damage. More importantly, by the time the kid woke up, Quinn and Jones would be long gone and the data in the Protectorate’s hands, and the Linden family would have much larger concerns when the Protectorate came down on Daddy for his shady dealings.

  Jones motioned toward the door. Time to move on.

  They returned to the first bedroom they’d come across, the one with the youngest child. Inside, Quinn spotted a giant mural painted on the wall. Despite the dim nightlight, she saw the outline of a broad-leafed tree, flowers, and butterflies. She hesitated, drawn to the lovely wall art, wanting to stare at it but knowing that time was ticking. When Quinn shifted her gaze to Linden’s daughter, she froze.

  The girl sat up in bed, eyes open, staring right at Quinn. Her blue eyes were huge, her face contorted with fear and surrounded by messy bed head.

  “Who are you?” she said, sounding younger than her twelve years. And scared.

  “It’s okay, sweetie,” Quinn said gently. “No one’s going to hurt you.”

  Quinn approached, a wave of shame spreading over her as the girl shrank away in fear. Quinn injected her, and soon the girl’s wide blue eyes shut again. Just as her body went limp, Quinn caught her and lay her down softly. She turned away, avoiding Jones’s eyes, knowing he was thinking what she was thinking.

  This was a fucked-up job. Too much risk for too little pay.

  But now it was time. Time to tackle Linden and get the hell out of there.

  They headed down the hallway, the carpet absorbing the sound of their feet. She carefully pushed open one of the double doors that led to the master bedroom. Inside, the room was large, the view through their blinds as beautiful as the others. Linden slept on his back, snoring away while his wife lay curled up in their giant bed, her ears covered with protectors.

  Quinn and Jones divided up, Quinn tackling the wife while Jones sedated Linden. Neither awakened and both settled into what would be a multi-hour deep sleep. Quinn came around the bed and approached Linden, giving him a good shake, just to be sure. She began setting up the nodes, attaching them to the base of his skull.

  She glanced at Jones, motioning to his proximity detector. Jones checked it, then gave her the thumbs up. No sign of cops or intruders. If they hadn’t gotten an alert by now, no one knew they were there.

  She stared at Linden.

  I got you, asshole.

  Quinn assumed her position, sitting down on the fluffy rug and leaning back against the bed. She attached her own nodes, taking a couple of deep breaths to prepare herself for the onslaught.

  Jones kneeled down next to her, taking the data device from her.

  “Ready?” he mouthed.

  Quinn hesitated, a slew of thoughts rushing through her mind suddenly. She grabbed Jones’s arm. He raised his eyebrows, wondering what her problem was. She reached into her right pocket and pulled out her energy weapon, handing it to him.

  Jones stared at the weapon, blinking a couple of times. He stowed it in his own pocket.

  She hoped he understood. That he knew she was handing over her highly illegal, black-market energy weapon, expensive and extremely difficult to obtain, giving up her most powerful defense… putting her very life into his hands. She’d never shared her weapon with anyone, even Daria. But something told her it was the right thing to do.

  Quinn rested her head against the bed and took another deep breath, giving Jones the nod.

  At first, there was nothing. Just nothingness. Then, a strange dreamlike image: a lobby filled with plush red seats, a tall green plant in the corner, and a carved wood door painted matte black. The lobby was otherwise empty, devoid of people, sounds, or smells. It was a restaurant waiting area, probably from one of Linden’s other restaurants, wherever he’d been that day.

  Then, signs of activity—noise, movement, the flow of thoughts and feelings and energy—but it was muted, quiet, in the background, somehow trapped beyond the black door. She walked over to the door, grasping the handle and turning it. It was locked. There were multiple bolt locks.

  Linden’s mind, protecting itself from invasion.

  Quinn relaxed her own mind, trying again, knowing it was only a matter of time. She pulled a few tools from her pockets and began patiently cutting through the locks, one by one. It took time, but she eventually made her way through them all. When she opened the door, she prepared herself for the onslaught.

  But it never came. Instead, she’d entered a hallway, every surface stark white and its walls lined with more doors. Seemingly countless doors. She checked the first of them. It was locked.

  Gary Linden had invested in the higher-level mind invasion training. The better training didn’t scare you with toppling bookshelves or sheer rock cliffs… it aimed to challenge something even more important: a jacker’s race against time. Better trainin
g took more time to break through. Which meant Linden probably had a lot to hide. No restauranteur, no matter how successful, needed this level of training. Quinn hadn’t seen anything like it since she’d jacked the military Special Ops guy, whose weapon she’d filched.

  She got to work on one lock, then another, and another after that, until she’d broken through forty of them. Her patience stretched thin but her determination intact, Quinn reached for the doorknob to the last one. And when she opened it, the background hum of noise, the flow of thoughts and feelings and energy, suddenly exploded as a wall of water hit her.

  This wasn’t a tsunami-like flood of feelings and memories… it was an actual tsunami.

  Water surrounded her and she was quickly submerged into its darkness. She could see nothing, couldn’t hear or even breathe. Panic rose quickly, as Quinn never grew up swimming like other kids, not in a sandpit like El Diablo. It was clamorous and chaotic, knocking Quinn backward and upside down until she was twirling and twisting through a maelstrom of feelings and images and water, like a surfer caught in the break of a crashing wave. She could feel herself getting lost, drowning in the flood of Linden’s mind.

  No.

  It’s not real. It’s Linden, fucking with me again.

  Quinn quelled her panic and forced herself to relax and avoid the thrash and desperation of her instincts. She stopped struggling and let the dark ocean flow over her and through her, thinking her own pleasant thoughts about diablos with real lime and that building on Hillcrest Avenue in Mayfair, refusing to let her mind get lost in Linden’s and become imprisoned there indefinitely. Then, the water receded, until she stood only ankle deep.

  Images flew past. Linden and his family, sprawled on that big living room couch. Linden and his wife, drinking wine. Linden and Borelli, talking in some office. She felt wisps of happiness, peace, laughter. Then a flood of ambition and greed and drive, feelings she’d grown familiar with from jacking wealthy corporate targets who revolved their lives around achievement and the acquisition of assets. She heard snippets of conversation from memory fragments: something about a big payoff, concerns about the Protectorate and ensuring they didn’t find out, something about the J’s.

  J’s? What did J signify? Quinn knew all the lingo among those who conducted secret business, whether upper or lower class, white collar or blue, upstanding or underground. She wasn’t familiar with any J or J’s.

  A few images of plainclothes men with guns soared past her. Jacker cops, including Noah’s face for just a millisecond. He looked driven and determined, just like that morning when he’d sprung out of bed and sent her away.

  All of a sudden, a dark void sucked her in, violently and unexpectedly. Everything went dark, the noise quieted, and the flow of information decreased to a trickle. What the hell was this? It didn’t feel like the calm equilibrium a skilled mindjacker could find in the vortex of someone else’s mind. This felt… wrong.

  Like death. Or evil.

  Then, a bombardment of new images. Disturbing ones. People in black stealth clothes, almost ninja-like. They all had a tattoo on their wrists, black but otherwise indiscernible. And fear. Fear beyond fear, gripping and heart-stopping. Terror. Then, an image.

  A man lying on the asphalt, tomato sauce on his pants and his skull crushed, his face no longer recognizable.

  Borelli.

  It was Linden’s subconscious, revealing itself.

  Then it all faded. Darkness. But the fear and terror remained.

  Quinn tried to stay calm, to face whatever this was, to avoid the powerful temptation to panic or to give in to the overwhelming darkness and let it subsume her. But she felt herself losing that fight, felt herself sinking into the depths of something unholy and endless. Her heart pounded and heat raged through her and she felt the urge to cry out.

  Calm! Breathe!

  She fought and fought, but she was losing ground. It felt like the vile force was more than just some darkness trapped in the deep recesses of Linden’s subconscious. It felt like it was after her.

  How could that be?

  Then she knew. She’d been mindjacked.

  Quinn focused her efforts on doing what she’d been trained to do but had never needed until now—protecting the sanctity of her mind, her thoughts and identity, by focusing her mind on blankness. Just blank, like a void of nothingness. When that didn’t work, she did the next best thing and began reciting multiplication tables, something that occupied her mind and utilized enough brain power to prevent mind thieves from obtaining what they sought—important thoughts, key memories, or, worst of all, eventual control of her mind.

  Then, all of a sudden, the darkness, the evil… it was gone.

  She blinked, no longer seeing the dark void. She was sitting on a fluffy rug, staring through a set of window blinds at the night sky. Linden’s house. His bedroom. She felt for her nodes; they were no longer attached.

  She was awake.

  Noise. Grunting and pounding. Two men fighting, one in cargos and one in all black.

  The black ninja men she’d seen in her mind were real. And one of them was right in front of her, fighting it out with Jones.

  Chapter 36

  Quinn jumped to her feet, having no idea what the hell was happening.

  Jones and the unexpected intruder were locked in a knock-down drag-out, and Jones was holding his own. Just as she was about to lend a fist, she realized she needed to secure the data first.

  She frantically searched the area, glancing briefly at Linden and his wife, who were still out cold. She spotted her mind reader near her feet. They hadn’t gotten to it yet. She snatched it up and stuffed it into her jacket pocket before reaching for her energy weapon. It wasn’t there.

  Then she remembered. She’d given it to Jones.

  Why wasn’t he using it?

  Suddenly, someone grabbed her from behind. Arms surrounded her, strong and relentless, sleeves black as night, a flash of a black tattoo on one wrist.

  There was more than one of the ninja guys.

  She delivered her usual methods of foot-stomping and elbow shots to loosen his grip on her, but he’d anticipated both and only tightened his grasp, one arm quickly finding its way around her neck.

  He could fight. And better than anyone she’d tousled with before.

  Quinn began to panic, feeling herself losing to an enemy of superior strength and skill. Then she remembered. What Wyatt had taught her. She reared her head back as hard as she could, her skull smashing into her attacker’s face with a painful crack. In one move she got free of him and took him to the floor with a thud, the fluffy rug doing little to soften the blow to her hips and elbow. They grappled, all arms and legs and the battle for control. Her opponent was small for a man, but he was far quicker than she was used to and he quickly got free of her and was back on his feet.

  They circled, Quinn ready to spring, every muscle taut, waiting for him to make his move and hoping she could thwart it. They exchanged a couple of blows before he grabbed her and thrust her hard against the bedside table, banging the backs of her legs as she sprawled across it, knocking the lamp to the floor until the glass base shattered into pieces.

  Before she could retrieve her brass knuckles, he came for her again, taking her down hard. He tried to get her into a clinch, where she would be trapped and at his mercy. She knew then that he wasn’t looking to subdue her. He wanted to kill her.

  Quinn again recalled her frustrating practice runs with Wyatt, who was far bigger and stronger, who never went easy on her, who would trap her for extended periods and force her to fight her way out until they were both bloody and battered. For the first time, Quinn felt thankful for Wyatt’s torture and did what she had to, never letting the ninja get his arms and legs fully around her before she took her fist and aimed for his groin.

  It hit, and pain shot through Quinn’s hand. He wore groin protection. Out of desperation, she bucked her head back again, hearing another crack as pain shot through her and she sa
w spots. But his grip on her eased, and that was all it took. She delivered the brass-knuckled punch to his skull, the one that would knock him senseless. Then another. And another, until his body went limp.

  Quinn leaped up, running straight for Jones. If they could take down the remaining enemy, they’d have the freedom and time to ensure they retrieved their equipment and data.

  Jones was locked in a death grip with the other ninja, closer to his size and just as skilled as her attacker. Jones was covered in blood and looked tired, and Quinn wondered again where the energy weapon had gone. She jumped into the fray, her brass knuckles in place, and she lobbed a left hook at the guy’s face, putting her entire body into it.

  The crack said it all. She’d landed it, and he crashed back against the Lindens’ dresser, knocking another lamp over and causing two drawers to open and clock him in the back.

  “The weapon!” she hissed at Jones.

  “The data!” he shouted.

  Quinn felt for her mind reader. It was still there. Then she realized that Jones meant the enemy’s data, the data they’d stolen from her mind. The thing that could end her career with the Protectorate, or worse. Her head throbbing, she frantically searched near the unconscious man on the floor and scanned the room, finding nothing. Then she spotted a white device, whiter than the rug, and she lunged for it. Suddenly, she felt a searing pain in her arm and cried out as it knocked her backward and onto Linden’s bed. Jones’s attacker had shot her with an energy weapon, but had missed her vitals because Jones was on him again.

  The enemy had her energy weapon.

  The ninja took one of the dresser drawers and slammed it into Jones, knocking him back several feet. Quinn went after the ninja, hoping she got there before he raised the weapon again and got his aim right. But he didn’t. Instead, he reached for the white device and snatched it up… and then raised his weapon at her.