Chamberlain’s face flushed. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Jayne reached into her pocket and opened her comm, starting a call to Merry. She smiled smugly. “Oh, I don’t? It seems pretty cut and dried to me. You disappear yourself, losing more of your marbles to your grudges and issues. Then, when you finally boil over, you hatch a plot to ruin a treaty. But you’re so far gone that you forget your little problem isn’t worth a human life.”
Chamberlain leapt to his feet. “A Tarem invasion isn’t worth one life? What academy did you attend? Haven’t you ever heard that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few?” His breathing became heavier. “And have you ever thought to ask yourself what your precious government was doing behind the scenes? Did that ever make it into your homework, Jayne the Amateur Spy?”
Jayne didn’t blink or shift her position. “She’s an innocent girl. You blackmailed a government official. This is less about my spy skills than it is about you being a heartless criminal.”
Chamberlain regained his composure. He sneered. “Your superficial moralizing isn’t going to save this girl. I have someone at the hospital, so you’re a little too late to be a savior today.” He opened his jacket to reveal a small mic. “I can give him the go sign any time I want.”
CHAPTER FORTY
Ridgeview General Hospital, L64, Theron Techcropolis, Armaros
The gang sprint-walked into the hospital lobby, attempting to look as natural as possible. Merry’s comm vibrated. “Fuck. It’s Jayne.” She opened her comm. “Hello?”
Instead of Jayne’s usual rapid-fire explanations and requests, Merry heard a tense conversation in the background. She muted her comm and called to her cohorts. “Guys!” She motioned for Fred, Vlad, and Burrett to gather around her. “She’s with Chamberlain now.”
The group took a collective deep breath and searched each other’s faces for what to do or say next. Merry hissed. “Listen!”
They could hear Chamberlain’s smug taunts regress to shouts of righteous indignation. Jayne goaded him with the facts she knew, adding a little snark to further fuel the fire. Chamberlain’s sneer practically oozed through the comm.
“I have someone at the hospital, so you’re a little too late to be a savior today. I can give him the go sign any time I want.”
Vlad looked at Burrett with an almost scientific skepticism. “Well that part definitely played out as you predicted. What’s your thought?”
Burrett’s eyes scanned the lobby. “We need to find this guy. Merry, you stay here and see if you can intercept and disrupt. The rest of us need to look for anyone who seems to be out of place or a little too caring towards Celia Wilson. We probably need a staff list for every pediatric’s shift for the last 36 hours, then for the next two shifts. That way, we can compare anyone we run across to anyone who should be there.”
Merry nodded, scrambling for a seat. “On it.” She set up her burner laptop and handheld with almost superhuman speed, then set about listening to the short-wave radio with her ear buds. Her keystroking and clicking kept a quicker, less hypnotic rhythm than her typical frantic work.
Fred shifted his backpack of gear from one shoulder to the other, thankful the rifle Burrett was carrying fit into a normal backpack when disassembled. “I’ve been to Celia’s room before, so I can take you guys there.”
Vlad hesitated. “What if he’s not there? If this henchman is posing as an employee, wouldn’t he need to do normal work tasks to look like he belongs?”
“Good point,” Fred agreed. He moved towards the elevator.
Burrett put a hand on his shoulder to slow Fred’s pace. “Where are you going?”
Fred kept walking, calling back. “Celia’s room, 6B in Pediatrics. One of us needs to be there and I know where she is.”
Burrett called to Fred. “I’ll meet you there.” He slid his hand into his pocket, rubbing the packet of pills like it was a worry stone. He smiled at Vlad, “It’s just you and me now, partner.”
Vlad tried to hide his suspicion and suppress the troubled feeling in his stomach. “Yeah, seems to be. Where else do you propose we look?”
Burrett pulled up the layout on the welcome kiosk screen, scrolling towards Pediatrics. “This girl takes medications, right? My guess would be the pharmacy. I wouldn’t put it past Chamberlain to give an order to have her meds poisoned.”
He hovered his finger above the screen before pointing to the exact location. Burrett took a deep breath, as if it would keep his heartbeat from getting ahead of itself. “Here. Call me if things get out of hand.”
Burrett looked towards Merry, who appeared completely consumed by the task at hand. He could see her hold a hand to her ear, apparently focusing intently on any sounds on the QER. Burrett smiled to himself before racing towards the elevator Fred used.
Vlad made a mental note of how fast Burrett ran towards the elevator, further noting the similarities between him and Jayne. He scratched his head. “I guess inmates do work out a lot.”
Vlad hurried towards the elevator that would get him to the right floor. He felt uneasy, but somehow disconnected from the situation at the same time. His skin was clammy. Vlad exhaled as he reached the elevator, ultimately deciding to chalk his feelings up to nerves, hoping that Merry had plied Burrett with enough Talon-R to get him through this.
Merry looked up briefly, watching the guys go their separate ways. Her head was pounding. She went back to the channel where they originally found Chamberlain, but there was nothing but static. “Burned it already,” Merry muttered. “What are the chances he made a Plan B…?”
She found Jayne’s comm signal and attempted to lock onto any signals in the same location. Jayne’s was the only signal coming from that location. Merry growled to herself. “Son of a bitch.”
Punching a couple commands into her browser to access the dark web, Merry located a makeshift Tor reverse phone detective and started searching for encrypted vid-o numbers.
Merry went back to listening to Jayne’s open comm conversation with Chamberlain. Jayne’s voice had a calm ferocity to it, like a cobra about to strike. She felt a chill in her bones and a tightening in her chest. “C’mon, that number exists somewhere…”
She found the first relay point, which quickly led her to a file directory. The public-private key pair was simple enough, as was finding the second relay point and local file directory. Merry could feel the blood vessels in her head tighten. She was dying for a kava. No time for kava now, kid. We have shit to do.
Not having a kava cup in her hand left her feeling strange and vulnerable, but she pushed that feeling aside. The fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth relay points progressed in much the same way. However, the ninth offered up a rendezvous point. Merry felt her overall energy perk up. She smiled to herself. “Where there’s a rendezvous point…”
Finding the introduction point gave her little difficulty. In a matter of seconds, she was able to see five more comm signals in Jayne’s vicinity.
+++
Ridgeview General Hospital, L64, Theron Techcropolis, Armaros
Burrett sped to the hallway where Room 6B was located, slowing his sprint to a casual walk after reaching it. He nonchalantly scanned the hall for Fred.
Nothing.
Burrett started whistling a tune that a guard had gotten stuck in his head a few months prior. He smiled to himself.
A brunette nurse of medium build stopped him. “May I help you, sir?”
Burrett smiled calmly. “I was just going to meet a relative in 6B. Our darling cousin is in there.”
The nurse gestured to the room. “He just went in. Please call if you need anything.”
Burrett had to force the next smile and could feel the corners of his mouth starting to twitch. Smiling had never come naturally to him. “Thank you, you’ve been most kind.”
The nurse blushed and looked slightly confused by his choice of words. She thought to add one more thing. “My shift is about to end. B
ut if you need anything, the next shift nurse will be at the desk.”
Burrett watched her walk towards the Pediatrics station and sit in front of an employee kiosk. He resumed whistling. It kept his twitching under control. When he strolled past Room 6B, he could feel his chest expand. His stomach turned inside out, a morbid sense of butterflies as he neared his destination.
Turning a corner, he muttered to himself. “Time to see what you did to me.”
The Bio-Scan Lab was closed for the night. Burrett’s hand had a slight tremor as he took a blank hospital key card he’d stolen from Fred’s wallet out of his pocket. He chuckled to himself. “Good thing that boy’s always prepared.”
Burrett slinked past the opening door. The lab was dark, except for the dim red of the safety lights. He saw the pale, techno-ethereal glow of the bio-scanner and adjoining computer. He quickly familiarized himself with the computer and its various functions. He pulled up its holographic screen and started shuffling through the help section. Once he understood the basics to initiating a scan, he fired it up. He moved as fast as possible to lie down in the metal tube.
He perceived a sensation that felt like bugs running across his body as the machine scanned him. The scan ran over his body several times, each scan serving a different purpose, searching for different secrets. When the process was done, Burrett felt relieved to get out of the tube and start looking through his scan results. He smirked about how normal his brain looked, a judgment against the machine’s accuracy. He scrolled to the image of the injection site.
Burrett frowned. “I thought so.” A small nanotech chip sat on the insertion point of one of his quadriceps, about two inches above the knee. He looked around for a nano-med programming and deactivation device, sighing to himself about the predictability of Merry’s scheme. Pointing the handheld device at the injection site, he whispered.
“Come to Papa.”
He felt his thigh shake under the quick sonic vibration of the device. Burrett found himself smirking at the thought of this being the most important massage he would ever get. He felt his fists clench and a wave of anger and anxiety crash to the surface. Burrett fished a pill out of his pocket with his shaking hands, wondering who was going to be his supplier now that he was finally free.
He shrugged. “I can always ask around.”
+++
Merry closed her comm call with Jayne.
Chamberlain had given more than enough detail about his goon. He sounded like a real sociopath with ice in his veins. As she opened a comm call to Burrett, a sick feeling expanded in her stomach. There was no answer.
She closed her eyes and attempted to focus on her racing thoughts. Merry closed her comm, then reopened a conversation with Burrett.
No answer.
The comm signaled several more times before going dead. Merry exhaled. “Well, that can’t be good.”
+++
BZZZZZ! BZZZZZ!
The comm notification brought Burrett back to reality. He felt the tremors in the corners of his mouth subside. His shaking hands steadied themselves, and his tunnel vision opened up, dropping his conscious self right back into the bio-scanner room. Burrett disabled his comm, throwing the earpiece in the trash. He leaned against the doorway, listening for Vlad or Fred. But the hallway was silent.
He casually walked in the opposite direction of Celia Wilson’s room. Burrett started to whistle softly but stopped when he heard footsteps. It sounded like three men running.
Vlad’s voice sounded rushed. “In Room 6B! Hurry!”
Burrett looked around for an extra hallway or storage room. He ducked into a storage closet on his left, crouching behind a rolling mop bucket. The three men ran past, not even looking in Burrett’s direction. He snorted. “That dumb bastard went to Security.”
Once the footsteps had disappeared he strolled out of the closet, whistling, and headed straight for the exit.
+++
Haron Building, L19, Theron Techcropolis, Armaros
Chamberlain’s cigarette gasped its last breath in the ashtray on the armrest of his decrepit chair. The embers burned out before Chamberlain’s indifference. He glared at Jayne, but Jayne did not back down.
He slowly got out of his chair and wandered towards the window. He ran a hand through his hair and contemplated the view. “It’s poetic, isn’t it?”
Jayne snarled. “Didn’t know you were such a romantic, Chamberlain.”
Chamberlain smiled, continuing to stare out the window. “I’m tired of this, Jayne.” He opened his jacket and pressed a small button on the bottom of the mic. He lifted the mic closer to his mouth. “This is Green Light, coming in.
A hushed voice came through the device. “Copy. What’s the command, Green Light?”
Chamberlain smirked and stared Jayne right in the eye. He slowly moved his mouth to speak, as if he was about to enjoy each simple word. “Do it.”
Jayne felt her breathing slow. She saw wavy lines in her periphery, as she slipped into a heightened tunnel vision. She controlled her breathing to the best of her ability, accessing her source energy. Jayne felt the energy flow into her center from the top of her head and the bottom of her feet, the surge heightening her awareness. She ran at Chamberlain, tackling him to the ground before he could register what was happening.
Swiftly and silently, Jayne unleashed her anger at all the injustice she had been witnessing. She jammed a knee into Chamberlain’s chest, holding him down with one arm. She planted her other knee on his upper arm. Chamberlain struggled beneath her. Jayne felt him bend his knees as she focused her energy into her thumb, preparing to jam it into his windpipe.
Chamberlain grunted and attempted to lurch his upper body. He did not throw her off him but managed to disrupt the trajectory of her thumb to his windpipe. Jayne managed to rip the mic out of his jacket and throw it across the room before he landed an upper cut.
Jayne fell backwards, momentarily dazed. She swiftly rolled out of the way when Chamberlain lunged at her. She whipped her gun from her holster and pointed it at Chamberlain. “Stay down!” ‘Stay down’? Guess that training still kicks in when you need it.
Chamberlain evaluated her for a second before raising his hands to the surrender position. He got up slowly. “Okay. Okay. You don’t have to-”
Then, as if a switch flipped in his head, he lurched at Jayne and wrestled her gun arm behind her back. Chamberlain pulled her forearm further and further up her back until she couldn’t stand it anymore. She felt each finger go numb, and finally heard the dull thud of her gun hitting the rotting carpet. Chamberlain kicked it, sending it skittering across the floor. At the same time, Jayne felt Chamberlain take his own gun from his pocket and press it against her kidney. He laughed. “You think you’re the only one here who’s armed, junior spy?”
Jayne stomped on Chamberlain’s instep, simultaneously bending forward and throwing Chamberlain over her back. He rolled to his knees and started to get up. Jayne lunged for his gun hand, elbowing him across the face as she did so. Chamberlain moved his arm so that her head was held in a vise grip by his elbow. Jayne struggled, but was unable to lift his arm from her throat.
+++
Ridgeview General Hospital, L64, Theron Techcropolis, Armaros
Merry shook off losing communication with Burrett and focused on a faint signal. She thought she heard Chamberlain’s smug, clearly enunciated baritone. “This is Green Light, coming in.”
Merry felt her hand shake slightly and her lips go cold. It was him. She transferred the location of the introduction point into her jamming device. Merry hit Enter, but nothing happened.
A whispered voice came through the wire. “What’s the command, Green Light?”
Merry set up her jamming device on her tablet and transcribed the introduction point location. She hit Enter, feeling a great sense of relief when she saw movement on the screen. Merry stared at the screen, terrified. Her mind was screaming. “C’mon, fucking initialize!”
A gray di
alogue box appeared in the middle of the screen. “Action Initialized.”
Merry clicked Okay with a profound sense of relief. As she did so, Chamberlain announced, “Do it.”
Merry laughed to herself, releasing a great deal of her anxiety. Then, she started to cry. She knew there was no way the whispering goon got the signal. Merry felt her hot tears streaming down her cheeks as she laughed.
A couple of passing hospital patrons shot questioning looks at Merry, but she didn’t pay them any mind.
+++
Burrett listened for more activity as he approached the elevator. The floor foyer was silent, except for the normal chatter of nurses and the beeping of equipment. He casually strode through the open elevator doors and laughed to himself. “Music to my ears,” he muttered.
He rode the elevator down to the first floor, making a mental note of where he could get the materials he needed to live as a free man. He smirked at the thought of becoming a spy-for-hire, then felt his sense of hope drop to his feet. Burrett thought about all the years he knew in his heart that he was getting out but could not remember a concrete exit plan among them.
Burrett thought about the family and friend connections he’d had before he’d been disappeared. He wondered if they would remember him, or how long it took them to assume he was dead. Or if they were dead. As the elevator approached the ground floor, Burrett mapped out the path that would keep him out of Merry’s eyeline. The opening of the doors felt like breaking out of a cage.
He hid behind a pillar and watched Merry from afar. She looked excited and relieved, laughing and crying to herself like Burrett had when he’d deactivated her nano-chip. He smiled to himself as he sauntered to the exit farthest from Merry.
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