Heir to the Nightmare

by J. J. Carlson

  Yuri was the first to enter, followed by Eugene. They tiptoed past the explosives and began searching the house.

  Eli entered a moment later, holding a phone against his ear. In a low voice, he urged the tired NSA analyst on the other end of the call. “Just…do what you can. No, I can’t tell you what it’s about, but you can kiss your job goodbye if you don’t find something.” He ended the call and shook his head. “There weren’t any spy satellites over the area last night.”

  “They’ll find something,” Eugene said, opening a closet and shining a flashlight inside. “Those spooks have eyes everywhere.” He frowned. The closet was empty, but there were depressions in the carpet where something heavy had been. Eugene shined his light at Jarrod’s face. “What’s your assessment, Mr. Holmes?”

  Jarrod took another deep breath. “Three men and a woman lived here. And another woman visited yesterday afternoon. I can’t detect anything unusual. If they had a biological weapon here, it’s gone now.”

  “Figures.” Eugene walked into the kitchen and shined his light on the cabinets. “Any idea where they might have gone?”

  “No.”

  “Well, if we’re lucky, maybe we can find—aha!”

  Yuri and Eli poked their heads into the kitchen.

  “Did you find something?” Yuri asked.

  Eugene nodded, withdrawing a box of Pop-Tarts from the cupboard. He tore into the package and bit into a cinnamon-flavored pastry. After chewing for a moment, he held out one of the silver packets. “Want one?”

  Eli rolled his eyes and disappeared into the hallway. Yuri shook his head then followed his teammate.

  “Yes, thank you,” Jarrod said, stepping into the kitchen and taking the packet from Eugene. He forced the Pop-Tarts, aluminum wrapper and all, into his mouth, chewed, and swallowed.

  Eugene blinked. “There’s a toaster in here, too, if you’re still hungry.”

  “I can’t digest steel.” Jarrod pointed at the cardboard box in Eugene’s hands. “But cellulose provides a substantial amount of energy.”

  The team leader wrinkled his nose, up-ended the box, and dumped the last package of Pop-Tarts into his hand. He gave Jarrod the box and said, “Go nuts.”

  With nothing to do but wait, Eugene stretched out on the carpet and fell fast asleep. He’d slept on the flight from Ithaca to the Atlanta International Airport, but he never turned down a chance for rest when he could sleep safely.

  After ten minutes, Eli hurried into the room and kicked the sole of Eugene’s boot. “Gene, wake up. We’ve got something.”

  Eugene rolled over and sat up.

  “Our friends in the NSA pulled the tags of every vehicle in the neighborhood then cross-referenced traffic cameras to identify guests that visited the community yesterday.” He grinned. “The vehicle registered to this house left with another vehicle and took a very confusing route on the way to an upscale neighborhood at the edge of Atlanta.”

  Eugene jumped to his feet. “Bingo. Do we have grid coordinates?”

  Eli shook his head. “There aren’t many cameras up there. But they narrowed it down to a half-mile area.”

  “Good enough.” Eugene spun his index finger in the air. “Let’s roll.”

  “Audrey, wake up.”

  The self-appointed leader of Katharos opened her eyes and blinked in the orange light filtering through the blinds. She frowned as she glanced at her watch. “Dammit, Ingram, it’s five-thirty. Do you know what time I went to bed last night?”

  He held up his hands. “I understand, and I wouldn’t bother you if it wasn’t important. Two of our perimeter cameras have gone out.”

  She scowled. “Did you check the batteries?”

  “I put in fresh batteries before installing the cameras last night.” He chewed his lower lip. “And Braden said he saw something…strange on the screen right before he lost the signal.”

  “Stop wasting my time. What did he see?”

  Ingram swallowed. “A black skull.”

  Audrey rolled her eyes and pushed Ingram out of the way. “Superstitious idiots,” she said under her breath as she left the master bedroom and turned the corner into the next room. “Move,” she growled.

  Braden abandoned his post at the mahogany desk and wiped his palms on his shirt. “I’m not being paranoid. Someone is definitely out there.”

  She flipped through the different camera feeds and shook her head. “Where?”

  “Camera seven.”

  The screen blinked as she brought up the feed. She tapped a button to cycle between visible light and infrared then frowned. Braden was right—a man was standing at the edge of the property with his hands in his pockets, staring straight at the camera.

  “Did you conceal these?” she asked, glancing over her shoulder at Ingram.

  “Yes. I could barely see the damn things from two feet away.”

  Audrey’s eyes narrowed, and she turned her attention back to the screen. There was something familiar about the man, but she couldn’t place him. “Can we sharpen this image?”

  Braden leaned over her shoulder and typed a command into the laptop. The video feed darkened slightly but the details immediately grew sharper.

  Audrey’s jaw dropped. She blinked twice and rubbed her eyes. It couldn’t be.

  Spinning in her chair and jumping to her feet, she began barking orders. “Wake everyone up and get them outside. I want you to kill that man and anyone else you find.”

  As Braden and Ingram ran from the room, Audrey glared at the screen, studying the man from her past.

  Eugene Carver.

  Her heart beat faster, and she brought up the other video feeds. She soon found two more men moving swiftly between the trees with compact machine guns in their hands. As she watched them leap-frog from cover to cover, the camera feed blinked out.

  “What the hell is going on out there?” she muttered. Another camera went out, then another. Soon, camera seven was the only feed remaining. In the center of the video, Eugene raised his right hand, extending his middle finger. Then the screen went blank.

  She cursed, sweeping the laptop off the desk. Somewhere in the distance, outside the cabin, there was a series of pops. She recognized the sound as gunfire from one of her experimental rifles. The pops suddenly stopped and were replaced by a blood-curdling scream.

  Crouching low, she hurried out of the room. Two of her men had remained behind to guard her door, each carrying a submachine gun and a pistol. She drew the pistol from the first man’s holster then ducked as several rounds struck the outside of the cabin. “Where’s the canister?” she shouted.

  “With Gretchen, in her room,” the second man replied.

  She clenched her teeth. “Which room is that?”

  He started to answer, but she slapped him on the side of the head.

  “Don’t tell me, idiot. Show me.”

  The man turned on his heel and jogged down the hallway. He opened the door for her and remained outside to stand guard.

  Audrey rushed inside and searched for the bio-weapon. It had been disguised as a portable oxygen container, and the old woman—Gretchen—was meant to carry it straight into the Center for Disease Control and Prevention. But now, it was Audrey’s only hope for escape. She had been inoculated against the contagion inside and could use it to turn the cabin into a quarantine zone. While Eugene and his cronies figured out how to contain the Hantavirus, she would slip away.

  But she had to find it, first. Tearing open a dresser drawer and finding nothing but clothes, she spun around and glared at Gretchen. “Well? Where is it?”

  There was terror in the old woman’s eyes. “I—I don’t know. I must have lost it.”

  “How is that possible? It’s a ten-pound titanium canister.”

  Gunfire erupted in the hallway, and Audrey pointed her pistol at Gretchen. “Stay put. I might need a hostage.” Staying low, she approached the door and opened it a crack. Her two guards were shooting wildly at an unseen foe. They dropped
empty magazines and replaced them, whimpering like beaten puppies.

  What the hell has them so spooked? She wondered. Backing away from the door, she gestured for Gretchen to get out of bed. Once the old woman was on her feet, Audrey snaked an arm around her neck and placed the pistol’s barrel against her head. When the woman let out a startled cry, Audrey hissed in her ear.

  “I’m not really going to shoot you, dipshit. No one will believe you’re one of us, and if we play this right, we can both get out of this alive.”

  Seconds later, the gunfire stopped and was replaced with crashing noises.

  “C’mon,” Audrey said, forcing Gretchen forward. She gripped the doorknob and pulled, then she positioned the old woman in front of her like a shield.

  She wasn’t sure what to expect, but it wasn’t this. The two guards were crumpled in a heap on the hallway floor, their arms and legs twisted into impossible angles. Standing above them, gleaming like polished granite, was the creature she had heard so much about—The Nightmare.

  At the sight of him, Gretchen sucked in a deep breath and began to scream. The sound was irritating but useful. It would make her a more convincing hostage.

  The beast didn’t move. It stared back at Audrey with black, dome-shaped eyes. Every inch of the creature exuded an air of barely-contained violence. Beautiful, magnificent, violence.

  “You’re everything I could have hoped for, and more,” Audrey said, shouting to be heard above the old woman. “But I never imagined you’d be working with the same people who turned you into a weapon.”

  Still no response.

  Audrey tilted her head back an inch. “Move back, or I swear I’ll paint the walls with her brains.”

  Finally, the creature spoke, its voice low and savage. “Do what you will.”

  Audrey winced and put her mouth against Gretchen’s ear. “I don’t think he’s buying it.” She pulled the trigger, and the armor-piercing round cut a clean hole through Gretchen’s skull.

  Audrey leveled the pistol, lining the sights up with the monster’s head. And still, it didn’t move. “You’re infuriating, you know that?”

  “So I’ve been told.”

  She shifted her weight from one foot to the other. “What happens now? Are you going to rip my head off, or tear my lungs out, or…what?”

  “I’m not going to do anything. My job is to keep you here.”

  “Is that so? And what if I pull the trigger?”

  “I’ll cut your arms off before the hammer falls.”

  Audrey swallowed. She was a professional, perhaps even pathological, liar. Because of this, she could always tell when someone wasn’t being honest with her. And her gut told her this creature was telling the truth.

  Her hands twitched and began to tremble. She didn’t fear death, and she didn’t fear pain. But she had heard stories about this creature. Stories that kept her up at night. Escape was impossible at this juncture, and if this beast knew even a fraction of the sins she had committed, she had nothing to look forward to but hours of brutal torture before an excruciating death. Taking a deep breath and bracing her abdomen, she jerked her hand back, pressing the barrel against her right temple as she pulled the trigger.

  Stars erupted in her vision, and she fell to the ground. She expected the pain to subside and the darkness to close in; instead, her vision began to clear, and the pain grew sharper. But the sharpest agony wasn’t in her skull, it was in her wrist. She looked down at her hands and frowned. The pistol was gone, and her right palm was facing the wrong direction.

  Footsteps in the hallway diverted her thoughts away from the failed suicide attempt. A dark-haired man with handsome features moved into the edge of her vision and stood over her. He bent at the waist and said, “Hello, Audrey. It’s so nice to see you again.”

  Her tongue felt thick, but she managed to say, “Nice to see you too, Eugene.”

  The man grinned. He raised the butt of his MP7 and brought it crashing down on her forehead.

  20

  Undisclosed Location

  Northeast Virginia, USA

  The scalpel descended slowly, hesitating an inch above Janson’s pallid flesh. Dean Wagner’s practiced hand shook, and after several long moments of trying to steady it, he set the scalpel aside. “Are you sure I can’t give you anesthesia?”

  She glared at him, refusing to answer the question he had already asked a dozen times. Janson had cultivated the irrational fear that he would leave, or turn her in, or tie her up, or cut her throat if she allowed him to put her under.

  Which was preposterous. She had made threats against his life on several occasions, but that was to be expected. She was a killer—a clever but uneducated brute. He was a scientist, a surgeon, and a visionary. Killing her would violate his Hippocratic Oath. It would also be a terrible waste; the U.S. Government had already spent billions to construct Hillcrest and carry out the experiments that turned her into the instrument of death she was today. And she still had so much untapped potential.

  Wagner had gathered mountains of scientific data during Project Nerium. The aftermath—Subject Four-Seven-Charlie’s violent escape—had been regrettable but also exceptionally informative. Based on surveillance data and eye-witness testimony, Wagner had compiled an extensive case study of what Subject Four-Seven Charlie, “The Nightmare,” was capable of. And with this information in hand, he had refined his recipe for the perfect soldier, one that could walk the line between human and machine with far less difficulty.

  Janson, unlike Four-Seven-Charlie, had retained nearly all of her memories and personality, and her cognitive and physical abilities were progressing at an astonishing rate. She was stronger, faster, and smarter than she had ever been. Her strength almost certainly exceeded that of Four-Seven-Charlie’s, and her skill with a nearly endless range of weaponry was growing exponentially.

  Her situational awareness and combat intuition were lagging, but there was nothing Wagner could do about that. The concrete bunker Janson had set up as a pitiable operatory lacked the equipment and staff he needed for the most delicate surgeries. Because of this, Janson would never have the synthetic auditory and olfactory organs that gave Four-Seven-Charlie near-telepathic battlefield awareness.

  But she didn’t care. In fact, she had insisted against such enhancements, claiming they would disrupt her focus. The only target that mattered to her was Four-Seven-Charlie, and the infrared sensors in her mechanical eyes were sufficient for tracking him.

  Under her direction, Wagner had tailored her bio-mechanical enhancements and genetic editing specifically for hunting and killing Four-Seven-Charlie. He had argued against the notion but was secretly intrigued. Four-Seven-Charlie had been his most lethal creation—an unkillable human weapon. And deep down, Wagner wondered if Janson could succeed where so many others had failed.

  “We don’t have all night,” Janson growled, snapping him from his reverie. “Just do it.”

  He nodded, noting that his hand had steadied. He made a tiny incision in her right wrist, giving him access to the median nerve. The human nervous system, though efficacious in its own right, was painfully slow compared to synthetic communication lines. Signals traveling through the branched system of human nerves could reach speeds of 120 meters per second, at best. Information traveling through a fiber-optic network could reach speeds of 200 million meters per second. Four-Seven-Charlie had been equipped with a synthetic nervous system—derivative of fiber-optic technology, maintained by nanomachinery, and interfaced with his brain stem. It allowed him to react to threats and move his body with unfathomable speed.

  Wagner paused for a moment and stared at the opening in Janson’s skin. The synthetic nervous system had improved Four-Seven-Charlie’s combat effectiveness, but his reflexes became so fast that he reacted to threats instantaneously. If Wagner and his fellow surgeons had not implanted the synthetic nerves, Four-Seven-Charlie might not have taken Agent Ford’s life, and Janson never would have asked for the same enhancement
in her own body.

  “Doctor Wagner, I need you to focus.”

  He blinked twice then made the next incision. Speaking slowly to avoid disrupting his delicate work, he said, “You know, this is going to take me a long time to finish. And people in Hillcrest are taking note of my frequent absences. Not to mention the medical supplies which are going missing from the inventory.”

  Janson raised her chin. “Don’t worry, I’ll take full responsibility.” She paused and stared at the ceiling, seeming to savor the images flashing through her mind. “When the job is done.”

  Felicity North read the simulation parameters, chewing the end of her pen. The task of finding scenarios that would trigger an emotional response in Jarrod made her sick because they inevitably involved the deaths of innocent people. And they were all based on plausible situations that Jarrod might stumble upon in the real world. The simulations had originally been designed to test Jarrod’s ability to ignore emotion and act solely on logic, which was even worse, in her mind.

  The scenario on the screen depicted the American embassy in Armenia. Terrorists had taken everyone in the building hostage, and Jarrod’s original mission was to break in, capture the leader of the militant group, and interrogate him. Rescuing any of the hostages, including several women and children, resulted in mission failure. With the help of the software nerds in Sub-Level-Six, Felicity had re-written the success criteria. For Jarrod to receive his “reward,” he would have to rescue at least ten hostages without killing anyone. As a numbers game, it wouldn’t make sense—if Jarrod simply killed the terrorists, he would save five times as many hostages, maybe more. But that was the point of the exercise; she wanted him to consider more than simple math when justifying killing. And she wanted him to know the heartache of trying to save someone and failing because, for real heroes, success wasn’t always guaranteed.

  As she finished reading, she nodded in approval. Now, all she needed was her patient. She glanced at her watch, and her forehead creased with concern. The team had been gone nearly twenty-four hours. She had no idea where they had gone, or how long they had planned to be gone, which made the wait even more difficult. Then again, they might have returned already. The underground complex was so large and quiet, it was easy to become isolated. To help locate individual personnel, the security system tracked RFID’s that everyone on the staff was required to carry. And since she had top-level clearance, she could search for the current position of anyone she wanted to.