Project- Heritage

by Rob Horner

  Chapter 8

  Travis

  1

  Travis tried to return to sleep after his hot shower but found his mind too active with revelations from the dream. The dream: though Travis knew he’d suffered the same visions for three…no, four nights running, this was the first time it lingered after waking. That it was Sherry’s face, so long unidentified, on the trapped body contributed to his agitation.

  It might also be why he remembered it this time.

  Every weird thing that had happened over the past twenty-four hours seemed to be connected to her.

  Since he didn’t have to worry about waking up his roommate—Chris was spending the night with a woman he’d met at Peabody’s nightclub—Travis decided now would be as good a time as any to see if he could find evidence of being watched, as the words in the logbook warned. Travis had a good imagination, being a lover of fantasy fiction, but he was usually able to keep the random ramblings of his mind in check, maintaining a solid grasp on the line between reality and fiction. He didn’t consider himself given to strange flights of fancy, nor did he believe he was paranoid. He didn’t listen to late night radio shows like Ground Zero, where everyone had an alien abduction story to tell, and where conspiracy theories proliferated like cockroaches in a ghetto apartment.

  But considering the strange message yesterday, the odd feeling of…connection he felt when Sherry was around, and the way his thoughts followed along the circuit path, as if he were just another electron…and Sherry had been present for that as well! Their eyes had locked, and he’d felt that, what could you call it? A response! He’d felt that response from her, like calling to like. Put all that together with this dream and you either had a coincidence too strange to be ignored, or one messed up dude who might need a psych eval!

  He figured he’d hunt around his room for an hour or so, find nothing, then maybe he could chalk it all up as coincidence, go back to sleep, and rest up for his day with Angela.

  Now there was a thought a guy could sink his teeth into…among other things.

  Rising from the bed, Travis dressed for the day in jeans and a lightweight shirt, which matched his Sketchers memory-foam tennis shoes. Then he made a show of straightening out his sheets and blankets, fluffing his pillow and setting it neatly at the head of the bed, dead center. While he tucked and straightened, he kept his fingers moving, probing under the mattress, feeling for anything out of the ordinary. He knew he couldn’t react if he found something; if he really were being watched, it probably wouldn’t go well for him should he blatantly discover it. He had to be careful and not let on exactly what he was doing.

  Standing in the middle of the small room, Travis placed his hands on his hips, hoping he projected the picture of the industrious house cleaner, looking for something else that might dare to be dirty. Though his posture was casual, his brain was scrambling, trying to think where else a surveillance device might be hidden.

  A couple of ideas surfaced, two last places where he could be vindicated in his paranoia or proven a fool, even if only to himself. The chest of drawers beneath the wardrobe came almost to the floor, with only a couple inches’ clearance between the bottom drawer and the floor surface. Would it be the same in the back? Could he search beneath his wardrobe without looking unduly suspicious?

  Idly, he patted his jeans pockets, hoping he looked like a guy who’d misplaced something. He added to his act, grabbing the upper edge of his wardrobe and jumping up, looking to see along the top. Moving beside the piece of furniture, he wedged an arm behind it, sliding it down low, levering just a little, a little more, until the wooden monstrosity slid away from the wall. He didn’t dare move it farther. Instead, he felt along the back, his hand sliding down, noticing the backing did not extend as far down as the front. Even as he let his fingers explore the underside of the chest, he wondered why he was still doing this. I should have my head examined, he thought, just as his fingers brushed…something.

  There was a small, squarish object adhered to the underside of his wardrobe. About the size of an iPod Touch, maybe two inches by four, the surface of the thing felt rough, like a speaker grill. There was a thin rod extending from one corner, like an antenna.

  Travis jerked his hand back, his heart pounding in his chest, standing so quickly he scraped his left shoulder blade on the windowsill. Instinctively he started to look around, as if the person who’d placed the bug might even now be hiding somewhere in the room.

  Idiot! Act natural. If there’s a listening device, then there’s probably a camera as well.

  From his position between the wardrobe and the window, looking at the opposite wall, he noticed one last place something could be hidden, a place so obvious that he never would have checked it if he hadn’t found something already. At the top of the wall, almost to the ceiling and just shy of the corner, was an air-conditioning vent.

  How could he check inside of it without giving away his intentions?

  An idea came to him.

  First, he had to play off his dig behind the wardrobe. Pantomiming putting something in his pocket, Travis moved to the front of the piece of furniture and pushed it back into place. He left the room, walking down the barracks hall to the common area, and returned with a folding chair, which he carefully opened against the wall under the vent, figuring it would be blocked from sight. Grabbing his smartphone in one hand, he activated its flashlight. He picked up a small dusting brush, something called a foxtail in military parlance, in the other hand. Moving quickly, he stepped up onto the folding chair, angling his flashlight into the grille. Smiling to himself, hoping the light from his phone might blind anyone on the other end of the alleged camera, he peered into the grille even as he swiped the foxtail across it.

  Just one pass, then he stepped down, praying that it looked like he was dusting. He didn’t need to look again.

  He knew.

  Inside the grille, set three or four inches back to avoid easy detection, was a small video camera, like the ones used in convenience stores. Its entire chassis was black-molded plastic, only the lens giving any light reflection. It appeared to have a bulky mass beneath it, possibly a power supply or transmitter of some kind. He hadn’t looked long enough to determine if there were any visible wires. It might be separate from the power grid of the building, or it could be hard-wired in. It didn’t matter.

  Without giving himself time to pause, time to ruin the illusion, he grabbed his phone, wallet, and car keys and headed out of the barracks room, out of the barracks, and to his car. His 2016 nitrous blue Ford Focus RS started immediately, and within seconds he was backing out of his parking spot and heading off base. The probability that his car was also bugged or tracked didn’t escape his attention; but there wasn’t anything he could do about it…yet.

  Driving slowly—the base speed limit on this side was only twenty-five miles per hour—Travis left Oceana and headed for the nearest Dunkin’ Donuts. He needed coffee, a lot of it, and a place where he could sit and think without feeling watched. Glancing at his in-dash clock, he noticed that it was only 4:45 am.

  It was going to be a long day.

  2

  Travis felt a little better sitting in the deserted Dunkin’ Donuts on Holland Road. He couldn’t shake the feeling everyone was watching him, like an animal in a zoo, his every movement subject to speculation and commentary.

  And look at that one, Janie! See how he uses his thumbs as a fulcrum to stabilize the coffee cup?

  How had this happened to him? It didn’t make any sense.

  His dream. Maybe it offered other clues for him, since he wasn’t going to come to any conclusions just letting his mind wander. He had no trouble picturing the bleak landscape where it began, and it mirrored how he felt. Exposed. Every direction offered the exact same choices. None. But then what happened?

  Memories. Flashing images of his parents flickered across his mind’s eye. Concentrating on those images, Travis sought to find a clue.

  In a world
where a lot of people blamed their anti-social tendencies on a lack of parenting, Travis felt extremely lucky. From his earliest recollection, the single greatest thing he could remember was the absolute love his parents showed him. He knew his mother wanted a daughter but hadn’t been able to have any other children. He didn’t blame her for her desire, though he always felt a little uncomfortable with the knowledge. It seemed to him, when he was younger, that she must blame him in some small way for being a guy, for not being what she wanted, and he felt a measure of guilt because he’d made it so she couldn’t have any more.

  It wasn’t until high school that he’d finally been able to discard that notion. His mother loved him no matter what. He was determined to make her proud of him. To that end he drove himself, excelling in high school, bringing home Honor Roll grades while also participating on the cross-country running team. His after-school hours were devoted to Tae Kwon Do classes, which helped him develop a sense of discipline and inner peace.

  The biggest blow he could have dealt his parents was his decision to join the military instead of proceeding immediately to college. It wasn’t that they were anti-military; his father had been active duty when Travis was born. No, they wanted him to go the officer route—college first. But it was his decision, one he made after pricing colleges and determining that it would place his parents in a financial bind to send him. Besides, the military was a dream of his, to follow in his father’s footsteps, see the beautiful countries he’d seen and experience the different cultures.

  Funny how he hadn’t thought about them in a while. It didn’t take that long to drive to South Carolina, but he could only remember one time in the past five years that he’d bothered to visit them. Of course, that had been a rather odd reunion. Even though his mother pulled him to her ample bosom for a brief hug and his father offered him a weak handshake and a small smile beneath his mustache, there’d been no other signs of emotion, almost like…

  Wait a minute. Stop the tape. Rewind.

  Travis started breathing hard, and he forced himself to take long, slow sips of his coffee. The Dunkin’ Donuts remained deserted except for him and the young man behind the counter, who alternated his attention between texting on his smartphone and processing orders for the drive through.

  There was a problem in his memory. And once he’d seen it, he couldn’t unsee it. The only question was: how did it happen?

  Travis had two distinctly different mental images of his parents. Now that he’d focused on it, he remembered seeing something similar in the dream, a change in his parents’ appearances.

  For as long as he could remember, his father had been tall and well-muscled, though not thick like a body builder. He kept his face clean shaven because, as he liked to say, if he tried to grow a mustache it would look like a caterpillar fell asleep on his lip. He had gray eyes that could appear blue or green, depending upon the colors around him. He had a ready smile, with laugh lines at the corners of mouth and eyes, his only wrinkles, which grew a little deeper every year.

  His mother was of average height, about five-four, with blond hair and blue eyes on a trim figure. Travis was an almost perfect blend of their genes, standing five-eight with light brown hair and green eyes.

  When Travis last went to visit his parents, they looked completely different. His father was shorter, sporting unkempt, oily brown hair and a thick mustache. His trim figure had fallen to ruin, including a slight rounding in the shoulders and the growth of a noticeable beer gut. His mother had also lost some of her height, though she seemed to have gained in mass despite the difference. Her features were now more Mongolian than Patrician—dark hair, dark eyes, and a mouth that was little more than a cruel slash in a thick face. Yet he’d embraced them and could recall no lessening in his love for them.

  But that was impossible.

  Granted, his parents could have changed over the intervening five years, but this?

  No one changed like that.

  Those weren’t the same people who’d raised him. Or they were, and the other images were false. Which begged the question: which set of parents were real? And why did he feel the same for both?

  The only conclusion Travis could come to was that someone, somehow, and in some way had tampered with his memory.

  What other explanation was there? Could he be losing his mind?

  No. That made no sense, either.

  He took a deep breath, finishing the cup of coffee.

  Perhaps it was possible, he admitted slowly, that he was mentally unstable. And perhaps, if he hadn’t found the surveillance devices in his barracks room, he might find that solution tempting. But not now. Not with what he already knew.

  Someone was watching him, listening to him.

  It seemed reasonable to assume that if one thing was true, others might be as well. Someone had tampered with his mind to the point of replacing his natural parents with doppelgangers.

  And something…some very odd things…were happening to him.

  At least he had a logical explanation for the disappearing message in the logbook. His mind, acting on stimuli he hadn’t consciously noticed, made him see those words. They were a warning. But that didn’t come close to explaining the other stuff.

  Sherry.

  Yes. Sherry. The new female petty officer.

  She’d been present both times his mind played tricks on him. And she’d featured prominently in his dream the night before.

  The circumstances presented a delicious irony. She could have appeared in any other dream, and he wouldn’t have thought twice about it. She was very attractive.

  But why did it make sense for her to be there?

  Something was happening with her, something between him and her, and the fact she’d so suddenly become entangled with his dreams and with the other weird things couldn’t just be coincidence.

  What should he do?

  The thought of contacting her made more sense now than it had the day before. But what could he say to her? Would she believe anything he said? Or would she report him for sexual harassment?

  For some reason, those doubts didn’t linger long.

  Travis had the distinct impression, from the look on her face after the circuit incident, that she was also experiencing something, perhaps even the same things. She’d believe him. He knew she would.

  With that decision made, Travis checked his watch. 5:30am. He needed to get her phone number, and he knew how to do it.

  Her number would be in the recall box. However, since it was a Saturday, the only people working would be the duty personnel, and they wouldn’t arrive to open the doors until 7:00. He needed a way to kill an hour and a half.

  Rising to throw away his cup, Travis saw the sign across the street for the Super Wal-Mart. Below the name was another phrase: “Open 24 hours.” With a smile, Travis left the Dunkin’ Donuts and headed out to his car. Hopefully, the fully stocked supermarket/department store would have what he needed.

  3

  Travis’s first trip into the store was relatively brief; all he needed was a high-power flashlight and the batteries to make it shine. His smartphone was good at illuminating things at close range, but it didn’t project light in a focused beam, and he didn’t relish the thought of getting dirty this early. He returned to his car and dropped to the ground, playing the light up underneath the chassis. He wasn’t an automotive technician, preferring to leave that kind of maintenance to those who understood it and enjoyed it. He could handle a flat tire, could change his own oil, if pressed, and he knew what belonged on the underside of a car.

  It took him less than a minute to locate the miniature transmitter, tucked along the forward side of the exhaust manifold. Seen in the beam of the flashlight, it resembled a large black insect with two small protrusions on either side pressed against the manifold. There were two LEDs—one red, one green—glowing between them. The body was also pressed against the manifold, probably magnetic, to keep it in place. Travis thought that if he lay on the
ground, he should be able to reach the thing, but those two metal protrusions gave him pause. What could those be for?

  The answer was surprisingly simple, once he stopped to think about it.

  If you were in the business of attaching tracking devices to private vehicles, you’d want to know if the device had been discovered and removed.

  Travis figured the two small probes allowed for the conductance of a low-voltage current. If he disrupted that current—which removing the transmitter would certainly do—the device would transmit an alarm, alerting whoever might be watching. The green LED probably indicated a completed circuit, and the red active transmission, though that was just a guess.

  Pondering for a moment, Travis returned to the department store, this time seeking a small jumper wire, nothing more than a single shielded strand with an alligator clip at each end. Returning to his Focus, he scooted as far under the chassis as he could, thankful for the nineteen-inch wheels that gave him enough clearance without needing to jack the car. With the flashlight pointing at the black box, Travis attached one end of the jumper wire to one of the metal leads, then quickly attached the other end to the second. Now, with a separate path for conductance, he felt comfortable pulling the small box away from his vehicle. Both green and red LEDs remained steady.

  His first impulse was to leave the transmitter sitting in the parking lot. He resisted the temptation, figuring it was better to hold onto it for now.

  Using a bit of electrical tape found in his glove compartment—leftover from when he installed the stereo—he secured the alligator clips to the leads. Placing the transmitter on the passenger seat, Travis tried to think of any other precautions he could take.

  This mysterious they had gone to a lot of trouble. They were monitoring his barracks room and tracking his car. They must know that his was a factory standard Focus RS without a navigation system, which prompted the necessity for the tracker. It stood to reason the interior might also be bugged. That could be worked around by not talking in the car, or by blasting the stereo as a last resort. What else was he missing?