Absolution: A Near Future Thriller (Forsaken Mercenary Book 2)
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The story he told us next was impossible. Had I not known what I was or seen the Cyber Hunter for myself, I wouldn’t have believed the tale in a million years.
Chapter Four
“Tell me what you know of the destabilization of Earth,” Commander Shaw asked us. “Of when we realized we needed to migrate to the moon and beyond.”
“There wasn’t enough resources to go around,” Monica said with a shrug as if it were information everyone knew. “The Earth was dying and we needed to go find a new home. Not much else to tell.”
“That’s all correct, but most lies are cloaked in truth. The good ones are at least.” Commander Shaw crossed his arms over his chest. “When the governing powers realized what was happening to Earth, they sent their best and brightest to come up with a solution. The Order had them slaughtered.”
“The Order didn’t want to save Earth?” I asked, confused. “They wanted to go to the moon? Have they ever been to the moon? It’s not that great of a place.”
“They had vested interest in history taking a course in which humanity traveled to the moon, Mars, and beyond,” Commander Shaw answered. Phoenix was founded in those days humanity abandoned Earth. “We were founded by men and women who knew the very real threats of not the Galactic Government but these shadow entities like the Order and Immortal Corp. The more we pulled on the thread, the more we realized how much they controlled the narrative of mankind.”
“And these shadow organizations aren’t even on the same side,” I chimed in remembering the way Echo tried to convince me to team up against the Cyber Hunter. “They’re at each other’s throats. The Cyber Hunter was here to kill Echo, maybe even grab the super seed.”
“Thanks to you, she got neither,” Monica said.
“It was close,” I answered, remembering the three-way fight stopped short by the platoon of Phoenix guards rushing into the room. “If we fought it out, I’m not sure who would have been walking out of that cell block.”
We stood in silence for the moment as the harsh truth soaked into our minds. I thought back on what Echo told me about the Order. Another thing struck me.
“Echo said the Order goes as far back as an organization called the Illuminati and the Knights Templar,” I said. The tone in my voice asked for clarification on its own. “Do you know what he was talking about?”
“I do,” Commander Shaw walked over to the third chair and rested wearily in the seat. He reached into his right pants pocket, pulling out a small vial and downing the substance. “Need to take my medicine these days to dull the edge.”
Before I could discern if that was in fact medicine or some kind of alcohol, Commander Shaw dropped another information bomb on us.
“Secret organizations are nothing new. They’ve been around since the beginning of time. The Order is the oldest known in existence.” Commander Shaw placed the empty vial back into his pocket. “Who runs the Order, we don’t know. What we do know is that they are real, well-funded, and they’ve been around as far back as we can determine.”
“The Order didn’t want humanity to stay on Earth,” Monica thought out loud. “They got that. What do they want now? Do they not want Earth terraformed for people to come back?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.” Commander Shaw rose to his feet. He looked exhausted. “I need to report to my superiors. They need to know what’s been going on here. But not before we get everything we can out of Echo.”
A sour taste came to my mouth. I had no love for Echo. I half wanted to kill him myself, but torture was something different altogether. And it wasn’t just that. I knew that Echo wasn’t going to give anything up. He’d let himself be tortured over and over again, only to heal and be tortured more.
“Not that,” Commander Shaw said, reading my eyes. “Echo isn’t going to give us anything willingly. We’ll have to go in and extract his memories.”
“Extract his memories,” Monica repeated. “How?”
“We have a process called cerebral extraction our scientists have been working on,” Commander Shaw said, looking over at Monica. “He’ll be sedated. We’ll send someone into his memories to find out where your father is being held. We’re going to get him back.”
“I’ll go in,” Monica said, rising from her chair. “I should be the one to go in. It’s my father we need to rescue.”
“You’re too important to the cause.” Commander Shaw shook his head. “We need you. If we can’t replicate the super seed effect and manufacture it on a large scale, all of this is for nothing.”
“It should be me,” I said, rising from my chair. “I have a past with him and my own questions I want answered. I’ll go in, get the location of your father, and get my answers while I’m at it.”
This seemed to be the outcome Commander Shaw was hoping for. He gave me a tight nod.
“The past can be a brutal place,” Monica said, reaching out and touching my arm. “Are you sure you’re ready for that?”
“I need to know,” I said, looking down at the ground before lifting my eyes to meet hers. “Not knowing is going to eat me alive.”
Monica nodded, giving my arm a squeeze before letting her own arm fall to her side. “Be careful.”
“I’m going to let the team know to get our room ready,” Commander Shaw said, ducking out of the room. “It shouldn’t be more than a few minutes.”
“Daniel, Monica is right,” X said out loud. “Not just because the truth of your past may cause a mental break, but tied so closely to Echo’s mind, you might not be able to get out intact.”
“What do you mean?” Monica asked, concern etched on her face. “X, what are you talking about?”
“The events Daniel is searching for are so traumatic, if his mind is not able to differentiate reality from Echo’s memory, serious harm could occur. This is all hypothetical, of course. Any procedure like this is still in its experimental phase.”
“I’m going in,” I said with a shrug. “That’s it. I’m going in and you’re not going to be able to talk me out of it. It’s something I have to do.”
The tone in my voice was more forceful than I anticipated. X quieted and Monica actually looked angry.
I was saved from having to say anything else as the door in the adjacent room opened. A pair of white-lab-coated scientists walked into the room. They arrived so fast, they had to have been waiting and ready for the green light.
The hover cart they pushed in front of them had a machine full of wires and monitors attached to it. I wasn’t even going to pretend I understood how the science worked behind the thing.
Commander Shaw reentered our room. “Are you ready for this, Daniel?”
“Ready,” I said, ignoring the glare from Monica. She was a fireball.
I followed the commander out of the viewing room to the holding cell next door. Echo was reclined in a resting position leaning back against his chair instead of the table in front of him.
The scientists placed an IV into his left arm. A chair was brought for me and put on the opposite side of the table from Echo.
I took a seat looking at Echo’s disfigured form. The explosion had really torn him apart. The dreadlocks were burned off half his head. His shirt was scorched in a dozen different places. A patch of it near his chest was completely gone.
“Daniel.” A short scientist with thick glasses came to me with a ready smile and an open hand. “My name is Doctor Bartelbee. I’ll be administering the procedure today. It should be a painless and quick experience.”
I accepted his hand and give it a firm but not crushing shake.
“Let’s do it,” I said.
Our attention was grabbed as the other scientist opened a projector onto the far wall the likes of which I had never seen. Usually projectors were just that. They projected a holographic image on the wall. This one displayed a picture that looked like a wall of monitors. Not the kind of holograms you could see through. They actually looked like six large monitors resting in the wall.
I took the question as rhetorical.
“We’ll be able to monitor your progress on the screens,” Commander Shaw said. “If things get too much to handle in there, we’ll pull you out.”
“Just give me enough time to not only get your answers but my own,” I said. “Don’t pull me out too soon.”
“I’ll let you stay as long as it’s safe for you,” Commander Shaw agreed. “You’re a good man, Daniel. That’s something this galaxy is in short supply of these days. I won’t pull you out until you’re ready or serious damage could occur.”
That was enough for me. I guess it had to be enough at the moment.
“We’ll have sedatives running through the IVs attached to both of you, if I may?” Doctor Bartelbee asked, looking down at my arm.
“Go ahead,” I said. I leaned back in my chair as something I can only describe as a low-sitting crown was put on my brow from the other scientist. The steel crown felt cold on my forehead as a series of wires connected it to the machine. Another series of wires sprouted out from the machine and to an identical metal piece on Echo’s head.
“I have to say I am very excited to see how this will work on men of your—of your origin,” Doctor Bartelbee said with an excited grin. “We’ve only ever tested this on regular humans. I’ve adjusted the sedative to compensate for your accelerated metabolisms.”
The doctor gently pushed the needle of the IV into the vein at the crook of my right elbow. He secured it with a patch of tape before moving on.
“Try and relax,” Commander Shaw coached me. “Remember everything you are seeing isn’t real right now. They’re past memories, nothing more. Focus on where you want Echo’s mind to focus. You’re driving. He’s just the vehicle at this point.”
“Got it,” I said, already feeling sleepy as the drugs were dumped into my arm. “I control what he thinks about. Piece of cake.”
One second I was in the room, the next I was hurtling through what almost looked like space. The entire Vault was gone. All around me was blackness with white lights that shot out from someplace I couldn’t see. The lights weren’t single dots of light but rather cones that came from some origin point I was headed toward now.
Voices sounded in my ears, too many to distinguish one from the next.
Focus, I reminded myself. Focus on what you want him to remember. You’re in control. Focus.
The lights continued to grow in the darkness. The sounds of the voices grew louder and louder until they buzzed inside my head.
Like someone flipped on a light switch and the blackness with the white piercing cone lights was gone. I stood in front of a tall building… on the moon? No, there was no glass structure keeping us safe. We were on Mars, this had to be Mars.
I turned around in wonder. To my recollection, I had never been to Mars before. The place was so vastly different from either Earth or the moon, I was having trouble processing what I was seeing.
Wide-open paved streets allowed people to walk freely. The amount of people within eyesight was also shocking. The moon was packed with people walking shoulder to shoulder to the extent vehicles had to take to the sky. This was not the case on Mars.
On Mars, people strolled by laughing and talking. Vehicles on two, four, and six wheels drove by with more than enough room to spare.
The buildings were spaced far enough apart to have room in between. Intricate sculptures and water fountains peeked out of alleyways and were stationed on the edges of buildings.
A woman walked toward me. I recognized her. X, in her blue skintight suit and shoulder-length dark hair looked at me, just as surprised to see me as I was to see her. I had only seen her once before in my own dream, when I recalled my past.
“How is this possible?” I asked her. “We’re inside Echo’s memories and you’re here because you were inside mine?”
“We share a special link brought on by the trauma when you were shot in the head,” X reminded me. “Anything past that now would be pure speculation on my part.”
We stood staring at each other a moment longer. To be honest, I had no idea what to think. X was a part of me now, but if I was honest, I was glad to have her here. Not for the scene that we were about to see in Echo’s memories, but for the next.
“There he is.” X motioned with her right finger. “He can’t see us, but we’ll be able to follow him just like when we were in your memory.”
I turned to look down the street where X motioned with her hand. Sure enough, Echo was there, and with him, a woman with long red hair. The same woman who was in the half burned picture I recovered from Wesley Cage.
I didn’t know who she was yet. But I knew enough to know she was part of the Pack Protocol.
Chapter Five
I knew it was her not just from my memory of the picture, but my own memories of her flashed through my mind like a lightning bolt. Images of the two of us training, sharing meals, and even decked out in full gear for a mission.
I grabbed my temples trying to repress the memories for a later time. As much as I wanted to remember right now I made a promise to Monica to find where her father was being held.
The Mars landscape around me began to blur. Fuzzy blackness threatened to rip away the image in front of me.
“You have to focus, Daniel,” X’s voice reminded me. “You’re in control here. You have to remind Echo’s mind that this is where you want him to take you.”
Safe house with a laboratory, I forced myself away from the memories of the red headed woman. Echo where would you take a prisoner that was a safe house but also had the equipment for him to work?
The skull-spitting pain in my cranium began to subside. The view of Mars around me went from fuzzy back to normal once more.
I stood up, taking a deep, cleansing breath.
“Are you able to continue?” X asked, concerned. “I can probably stop this on my own without the need for them to pull you out.”
“No, no not yet. I’m fine,” I said, shaking my head free of the pain. I jogged forward to join Echo and the red-headed woman. “Come on. We have to get close enough to hear what they’re saying. Any landmarks or city names, street names even, could help us figure out where this is on Mars.”
X and I ran across the street to join Echo and his companion as they turned down an alley. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a statue. It was at least two stories tall. A bronze woman held a sign in her right hand that read “Elysium.”
I couldn’t ever remember going to Mars, but I knew enough to realize Elysium was one of their most famous cities. At least we knew what city we were in now. All I needed was a street sign or building name to really zero in on the location.
“There,” X said with a nod. The alley Echo and the woman walked down sat between two storefronts. One was The Archangel and the other store was called The Elite. “That has to be enough to go on.”
“Right, good work,” I said, still moving down the alley to follow the pair. “Let’s just follow them a bit longer to be sure they’re headed to the safe house.”
I could tell X didn’t like it, but she came along anyway. She was afraid the more of my past I dug up, the harder it would be on me. If I was being honest, I was a little afraid as well.
Stare down a band of Reapers or a Cyber Hunter and count me in. Put me in front of a mirror to my past and I wasn’t so sure I could handle it. But I had to.
The alley in Elysium was the cleanest, most pristine alley I had seen in my life. There were expensive high rise apartments on the moon that weren’t this clean.
I was close enough now to hear Echo and the woman talking as they made their way to a side door to the right of the alley.
“Really, Samantha?” Echo rolled his eyes. “You know you want to go out with me. You can just admit it. After I saved your life back on that rock, I saw it in you. I was your hero.”
> “Sorry, I just threw up in my mouth a little,” Sam said, pretending to cover her mouth and swallow the vomit back down. “Not going to happen. And I saved you on the viper mission, not the other way around. I think you’ve had too much brain trauma and it’s starting to mess with your head.”
“It’s just a matter of time.” Echo shrugged. “You’ll be begging me to go out with you sooner or later. You can’t resist the inevitable.”
During their conversation, I moved up closer to get a better look at both of them. Echo wasn’t much different at all really. The same dreadlocks came down over his long coat. He looked like he was the same age as the Echo I knew now.
Samantha was tall without being thin. Her hair fell behind her in a curtain. I could tell the woman was a poised spring without having to look twice. Her green eyes said it all. She was a killer just like Echo and me. She wore brown boots, dark pants, and a shirt with a short brown jacket.
“Right, well let’s get this over with. Any idea what they want this time?” Samantha asked. She entered a key code on the door. I was close enough to see the number: two, two, seven, five, one.
“No idea. I thought we were going to get some downtime back at base.” Echo stretched and yawned. A blue light shot out from the key code. Starting from their heads, it scanned them from the top down. “I heard Preacher got some time off after his midnight run.”
“Wherever we’re off to next, it’ll be like all the others,” Samantha said with a shrug as the door clicked open. “In and out. They won’t know what hit them.”
Echo opened the door for Samantha and they walked inside together. I followed close behind along with X.
The building was two stories tall on the outside, unassuming. The inside was the exact opposite. A pair of muscled guards nodded to Echo and Samantha as they headed for a door set into the back of the building.
The guards let them in without question. The way required another biometric scanner, this time for their hands and eye.
This place is going to be a beast to break into, I thought to myself. There are only two guards here now, but if they know they’re protecting the doctor who is going to create the super seed for them, there will be a lot more when we come.