“The head honcho,” Paul said. “The man in charge.”
“What happened to Commander Keegan? I thought you said he denied your request to be a father?”
“He did, but that was years ago. Commander Keegan left and a new bastard is in charge.”
Morgan felt stricken. He’d been counting on having a chance to kill Keegan and now that would have to wait.
“Where is Keegan now?”
“I’m just a lowly scientist,” Paul said. “I have no idea, but I haven’t seen the man since he left.”
Morgan felt cheated, but there were bigger fish to fry at the moment. Finding Keegan would just have to wait.
“We need to get to one of the gate guards,” Morgan said. “They’ll know the fuel schedule.”
“You’re going to blow the place up?” Paul asked, alarm in his voice.
“Yeah,” Morgan answered. “How’d you know?”
“Why else would you want to know the fuel delivery schedule,” Paul said. “I think I can help with that.”
“Go on,” Karen told him.
Paul went on to explain that the base was well-armed and fortified. The barn was simply a false structure. The real compound was underground, consisting of four levels that could withstand any outside attack short of a full-on aerial bombardment. But it did have a weakness, one he could hardly believe was never corrected.
“It’s basically one gigantic gasoline tank,” he said. “But running a truck…five trucks into the building and blowing them up won’t do much. The place is too well-built and if one section does happen to get breached from physical damage, or a contagion is let loose, the other sections are sealed off with four-foot steel doors.”
“So what’s the vulnerable position?” Morgan asked.
“The filling point,” Paul said, a glint of triumph in his eye.
“Where the tankers’ hoses connect to the ground,” Morgan said.
“Exactly. You’ll need to pump as much fuel into the place as possible. Then just drop a match, or better yet a flare and ka-pow!”
Paul grabbed a candy bar from the assortment on the table. He seemed much more relaxed now, Karen feeling the man’s excitement. He truly wanted to be free, to be with his daughter.
“We’re going to need some time to formulate a new plan,” Morgan said. “Having the fuel schedule is paramount, but abducting another Murphy employee, a guard no less, will surely draw suspicion and put the Unit on high alert.”
Paul held up a finger as he finished chewing. “I think I can assist with that, too.”
“And how’s that?” Karen asked.
“By letting you know where and when the guards will be during their one night off of the week—the only time they leave the compound.”
Very interested, Karen looked at Morgan who took up a seat at the table.
“Well then,” Karen said. “Go on.” And Paul did, telling them where the soldiers would be and when. Together, the three of them hatched a plan to acquire the fuel schedule—the next step in taking down The Murphy Unit.
Chapter 43
They decided that Paul would work and perform his tasks as usual. When the time came to blow the place up, he would simply call in sick that day. Seemed easy enough.
Paul only had two call-ins, or sick days, during the five years he worked for The Murphy Unit. The first had been a case of the flu—which he couldn’t believe the company hadn’t eradicated—and the second a stomach bug. The important thing was that no one from the company checked on him. So when the time came to call-in, he would be in the clear.
Karen was glad to have Paul aboard. He seemed genuine, likeable. Even without probing him, she knew he was a nice person. But having done so, she knew he was fully onboard and would prove to be a valuable asset.
A week after joining forces at the warehouse, Karen and Morgan headed back there to meet with Paul. He hoped to help her fully develop and control her abilities.
“Hello, Karen, Morgan,” Paul said upon entering the warehouse.
“Park around back?” Morgan asked. “Behind the wall of garbage?”
“Yes,” he answered.
“How has work been? Anything unusual?”
Paul took a chair and sat. From his satchel he pulled out a bag, dumping its contents onto the table—a variety of candy bars, ten.
“Yes,” he said. “Everything’s fine. I think I’m a natural at the whole espionage thing.”
“Sugar junkie?” Karen asked.
“Oh, no. These are for you. I figured we’ll be practicing a lot and you’ll need them.”
“Very thoughtful of you, Paul. Thanks.”
“You’re going to need them with what we’ll be doing.”
Karen remembered the diner, telling the story of how desperately she craved a sugary drink following her last experiment in thought control.
“Like anything else,” Paul continued, “the more you work on your abilities, the stronger you’ll be and the less energy you’ll require. But it’s always a good idea to be prepared.”
During the next few days, Karen and Paul worked together on her abilities, Paul acting as the guinea pig. It was tough and draining, but he was a good sport and thrilled to be of service. He understood the need for Karen to have her abilities under control and ready to use. Even Morgan allowed Karen into his head, but only on occasion. As Karen’s training progressed, it became harder and harder for Morgan to feel her presence. He was happy for her, but not exactly pleased, warning her to keep out of his head unless authorized.
Karen’s brain, Paul informed her during one of their much needed breaks, had undergone a physical and chemical change, hence the headaches during the beginning infection. The alien contagion, known as AS-1, was responsible for enhancing her brain’s abilities to those of the alien’s. In particular, the temporal lobe in conjunction with the Dorsolateral Prefrontal area of the brain, were now connected directly with each other, working as one.
“Those areas of your brain have re-wired themselves and grown in size,” he told her. “The new parts of your brain are extremely complicated, and we still haven’t figured out what is what exactly, based upon the data from our previous test subjects. There is so much to study, but this is the hypothesis that we have come up with based on the data we have and the autopsy results.”
“Autopsy?” Karen parroted. Then she remembered Josh telling her about the man who had come before him, Roger. So that made her the third person infected, and the only one still alive.
“Also we found that the Lateral Orbitalfrontal area of the brain was altered as well, becoming smaller.”
“And that does what?”
“Controls the emotional response to situations, events and whatnot.”
“Emotional…” Karen began, her voice barely above a whisper.
“Karen?” Paul asked.
She went on, telling Paul about her want to punish, to make suffer, the agent that had hurt Morgan; and how she was unable to stop herself because she enjoyed hurting him.
“That seems to be one of the normal emotions that occurs when a subject infected with the alien serum is confronted with objects or persons of great dislike. We don’t understand why this happens, but we assume the alien race is so far advanced that they have somehow progressed to a state of equilibrium or emotionlessness, using logic as their key motivator. For some reason, the alien contagion has altered the Lateral Orbitalfrontal area, shrinking it, causing impulse control to go haywire. With practice, you should be able to control it better.”
“You mean I won’t be able to control myself when I’m hurting someone?”
“Of course you will, but it will take mental reasoning to override your immediate and primitive thinking.”
At least Karen understood why she enjoyed hurting the man, and hadn’t in fact become evil.
Karen and Paul spent the next few days working on anger control, but as hard as she tried, she couldn’t bring herself to dislike Paul or Morgan. That lesson wou
ld have to be learned in the field.
All in all, Paul was impressed by how much she was able to attain. Mind-reading and Fear-Letting, as she called it, were almost second nature now.
On the Wednesday, Paul revealed another aspect of Karen’s abilities, one that Josh hadn’t fully grasped before his demise.
“I can make people do things against their will?”
Paul held up a finger. “Not exactly,” he said. “You possess the ability to suggest. Depending on the person’s psyche, you have within you the ability to plant an idea in someone’s head. You might suggest that a person is thirsty and needs a drink or go as far as to kill another person.”
Karen’s stomach tied itself into knots. The sour basement air grew nauseating. “I need a minute,” she said, pushing back from the table. Paul asked if she was okay. “I’ll be fine.”
Karen walked outside, needing fresh air. Morgan materialized beside her.
“You okay?” he asked.
She confessed what Paul told her.
“Look, nothing’s changed. If anything, you’re even stronger and more dangerous to the enemy now. That’s a good thing for us. I say look at it as a plus. More ammo for the good guys.”
Morgan was right. Maybe she just needed to cry, let out some of the dark emotion bottled up inside. And since meeting Paul, she’d grown aware that the man hadn’t touched her, not even a pat on the shoulder. Was he afraid of her? She was beginning to understand what a person with an incurable and contagious disease must feel like.
“I have to know how contagious I am.” She marched back into the warehouse. Morgan kept pace.
“What’s wrong?” Paul asked.
“How contagious am I?”
Paul broke eye contact.
“Tell it to me straight.”
“Tears, blood, saliva. They all spread the contagion. Basically all bodily secretions except sweat and urine transmit AS-1.”
Karen slumped into the chair. “I’ll never be close to anyone again.”
Morgan placed a hand on her shoulder.
“I’m sorry, Karen,” Paul said, looking down at his hands.
Karen absorbed the information. “Right now, the only thing I want to do is destroy The Murphy Unit.”
“Why don’t we head home,” Morgan said, standing behind Karen. “You look like you could use some rest.”
She turned toward him. “There’s no time. I want to continue.”
“You got it,” he said.
Chapter 44
Over the next four days, Karen and Paul worked together on refining her abilities.
Multiple mind-reading was like listening to a room full of people and tuning in and out of various conversations, both near and afar.
Suggestion proved far more difficult and taxing than anything else Karen had attempted to date, but by Day Four of her training it was almost second nature and required less willpower than when they’d started.
Against Morgan’s wishes, Karen and Paul went to the diner, using the multitude of patrons as test subjects for both suggestion and multiple mind-reading practices. Karen got a number of people to order things that she’d found in their brains by pulling memories to the forefront of their mind the same way she performed fear-letting.
“That’s it,” Paul said during the fourth night of training at the warehouse. “You did it.”
He moved to hug her, but she stepped away.
“I thought you were afraid of me. Afraid to touch me.”
Paul shook his head. “Not afraid. And I know the risks, what’s safe and what isn’t. Basic touch is all fine.”
They moved back together, the connection brief. Then they resumed Karen’s training.
She dove back into Paul’s mind. Paul’s outside appearance made him seem meek, but his mind was powerful, especially given his knowledge of Karen’s abilities. But if she could use suggestion on a knowing participant, an individual fighting against her and having a strong mind, then a normal unaware person would prove effortless. At least that was the assumption.
Karen concentrated, focusing on the simple task of making Paul feel the need to go to his car. She found the vehicle in his mind, showing it to him so that he could focus on nothing else and blocking out all other thoughts. She found the words “Go” and “To,” bringing them to the front of Paul’s mind. She flashed “Go,” then “To,” then the image of his car, repeating the barrage of images over and over in hypnotic fashion.
Seeing into his mind, Karen sensed Paul’s resistance. She increased Paul’s longing to urgency so that nothing would stop him from doing as she suggested. A knife layered in blood flashed between “Go” and “To” almost worked. She added a loaded gun to the sequence and set it on the driver’s seat. An assailant was coming for him, armed with a knife. Paul’s life was in danger. He needed to get to his car, to get to the gun.
Karen squinted, her focus one-hundred percent on Paul.
He was frightened and confused, not understanding what was happening. Paul got up and marched outside, behind the warehouse. Karen sensed relief fall over him as he drew nearer. He continued forward and out of sight, behind the pile of trash.
Karen was afraid of losing her connection with him, but held on until he opened his car door and climbed in. When the connection broke, her legs turned to jelly and she started to collapse. Morgan caught her.
“Whoa there,” he said.
Even speaking taxed her. “Did I do it?”
“Let’s ask the professor.”
Paul came trotting around the makeshift wall. “You did, Karen. You sure did.”
“Okay,” Morgan said. “Let’s get home and get you some rest. Tomorrow’s a big day—I return to the Murphy base and you get to worry about me being there.”
Chapter 45
Morgan crouched in the woods outside the Murphy compound, taking up the same location as his previous visit. He arrived shortly before sunrise, wanting to have the entire day for his stakeout. Eleven hours later and Morgan felt like he was watching a rerun. Nothing had changed. The place was like a ghost town apart from the guards changing shifts and scientists coming and going in their vehicles, Paul’s among them.
He sent text messages to Karen every four hours, letting her know he was okay. By seven p.m. Morgan was satisfied that he’d seen enough and was ready to leave when two black Sprinter vans like the ones from O’Hulahan’s exited the barn. Intrigued, he watched as the vehicles raced out of the compound and down the road. He heard the opening of a door and turned his attention back to the barn.
A door had opened, and soldiers, heavily armed, marched from the structure. They wore full body armor, helmets with face shields like riot police, but with guns instead of batons and shields.
The guards in the towers remained as they always were, clearly not a part of what was happening. The soldiers spread out along the fence closest to where Morgan lurked, lining up with their backs to him like a row of nutcracker soldiers on Christmas Eve, guns at the ready. Silence filled the air as if everything had frozen in time. Then: loud rock ’n roll music erupted from the P.A. system, obliterating the calm.
What kind of silly drill was The Murphy Unit running? Morgan rose to leave when he felt a painful sting in his back. Four more quickly followed. The music stopped and he heard the hustling of footfalls and hushed voices. Aware of what was happening, he spun in the direction of the assault.
Movement, numerous dark silhouettes in the forest—damn, he’d been tricked. The trucks that had left the compound were for him, filled with soldiers and sent to come in from behind, pinning him between them and the compound.
He turned back toward the fence as his body seared with agony from whatever they’d shot him with. The soldiers inside the compound faced him, the laser sites of their rifles focused on his chest. More stings bit at his body, and Morgan knew he’d made a mistake by underestimating his enemy.
He watched as the soldiers’ red lasers multiplied in number, his vision blurring. He at
tempted to run but fell flat on his face as the tranquilizers did their job.
Chapter 46
The knots in Karen’s stomach pulled tighter. It had been two hours since Morgan’s last communication. He said he’d be home no later than eight p.m. unless something came up, in which case he’d let her know. The routine had been the same for the past week and a half: home by eight p.m., eat dinner, then head to the warehouse and meet up with Paul. It was probably still too early to fret, but for some reason she couldn’t shake her worry.
Grabbing her cell phone, she dialed Paul’s number.
“Karen,” Paul said, answering his phone. “Where are you guys?”
“Morgan hasn’t come home yet. I think something happened.”
“I’m sure he’s fine,” Paul reassured. “He’s probably on his way back now. Maybe his phone broke or the battery died. It’s Morgan we’re talking about, remember? Hold on a second, Karen, my work phone is ringing.”
She could hear Paul’s side of the conversation.
“Right,” he said. “Okay…six a.m. No problem.” Silence followed for a moment, then: “Karen?”
“Yeah, what’s up?”
“I have to go in early tomorrow.”
“Did they say why?”
“No, but when they tell you to come, you obey.”
“You better head home then. We can work tomorrow night.”
“I can wait a little longer for you guys. It’s no problem. We can still get some work done.”
“Okay,” Karen said. “I’ll call you as soon as Morgan’s home and let you know when we’re on the way.”
“You got it.”
After hanging up, Karen went to the kitchen and put a kettle of water on the stove to make tea. While waiting for the water to boil, she went over to the living room window. The day looked pleasant enough, but staring out through the glass was like looking at a still photograph void of people. The sidewalk was empty, as was the park across the street. The only people she did see traveled past in cars; there one moment, gone the next.
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