Heir to the Nightmare

by J. J. Carlson

  Her hands floated above the keyboard for a moment. If she wasn’t careful, checking for Eugene and Jarrod’s return could become an obsession. She had checked ten times in the past hour, and more than one hundred times since they had left. She knew this because the system kept a log of inquiries. Taking a deep breath and swearing to herself that she would wait at least ten minutes before checking again, she brought up the security terminal and typed in “Eugene Carver.”

  Because she had seen the same message so many times, it took her a moment to process the new, different words that appeared. Descending in Elevator. Destination: Sub-Level Five.

  Her pen clacked against the desk and fell to the floor. She pushed her chair back, stood, and hurried into the hallway. Before long, the heavy steel door began to move, and Jarrod stepped into view.

  “Welcome back!” She grinned and pointed her thumb at the room she had just left. “I have a simulation ready for you, and I think it will help you decide when to…” Her words trailed off as she caught sight of a woman with shoulder-length black hair and a battered face. Glistening blood leaked from her nostrils, mixing with a patch of dried blood on her chin. Both her eyes were swollen, and she walked with a limp. Eugene walked along behind her, gripping the handcuffs that held her wrists together.

  Felicity hurried forward, fearing the worst. “Oh, no…Jarrod, what have you done?” She stepped past Jarrod and reached for the woman, but Eugene held up his hand.

  “I wouldn’t. Handcuffs or not, she’s dangerous.”

  Felicity ignored him. “Are you kidding me? She can barely walk.” She reached out and took the woman’s arm, trying to support her. But the woman lunged forward, pressing her face against Felicity’s and sliding her tongue into her mouth.

  Felicity recoiled, wiping her mouth and spitting out the woman’s blood. Eugene, still wearing Kevlar gloves, punched the woman in the back of the head, and she staggered forward.

  The woman just laughed and, glancing back at Felicity, said, “I’m not sure if they allow conjugal visits, but if they do, look me up.”

  The young neuroscientist looked on in horror, wiping her mouth on her sleeve until Jarrod, Eugene, and the strange woman disappeared into one of the secure rooms.

  Shivering, Felicity ducked into the Mental Conditioning Room and grabbed a bottle of water. She took a sip, swished for several seconds, then spat into a stainless-steel trash can. She rinsed again, cleansing her mouth of the coppery taste, and took a long drink.

  “Are you alright?”

  Jarrod was standing in the doorway. She studied him for a moment then nodded slowly. “I’m okay. I’m worried about you, though. Did you do that to that woman?”

  “You will have to be more specific.”

  She frowned. “Did you mess her face up?”

  When he shook his head, Felicity sighed with relief. But then Jarrod said, “However, I did twist her forearm, breaking her radius, ulna, and several carpal bones. I believe I also tore several ligaments and tendons in her hand.”

  Felicity groaned and bent over, placing her hands on her knees. After a long moment, she shook her head and stood upright. “Why did you do that?”

  “She was attempting to kill herself with a semi-automatic pistol. I disarmed her.” He paused. “Forcefully.”

  Easing into her chair, Felicity leaned her head back and closed her eyes. “Could have been worse, I guess. How about the rest of your mission? Did you kill anyone?”

  “No.”

  Felicity rolled her head forward and raised an eyebrow. “But?”

  “But I did wound thirteen Katharos agents. Eleven of them were later killed in a firefight with Yuri Sokolov and Eli Graham.”

  She sighed and turned toward the computer. “Progress is progress, I guess. Have a seat—we still have a long road ahead of us.”

  21

  “Okay, I think you’re all hooked up.” Felicity squeezed past Jarrod and hunched in front of a computer resting on his bed. While he was in Hawaii, she had filled his once-empty living quarters with computers and cables. Most of the technology behind the Mental Conditioning apparatus was beyond her understanding and would probably remain that way for the rest of her life. But she was confident she could run basic programs on the user interface. And the silver disks that connected the machine to Jarrod’s brain were fool-proof. All she had to do was stick them to his skull, and the nanobots in his body automatically made the connection.

  She opened a folder on the computer and scanned through its contents then selected a file labeled “Deedee.” She dragged the file over to the Mental Conditioning application and dropped it into a special box she’d had the software engineers create. Normally, the Mental Conditioning triggered reward and punishment responses automatically, manipulating the intricate cocktail of neurotransmitters in Jarrod’s brain to reroute tens of thousands of synapses at a time. It had allowed Jarrod to learn several lifetimes’ worth of combat skills in a few short weeks, but it came with a price—Jarrod lost vast portions of his consciousness in the process. Most of his memories had been stripped away; treasured moments spent with loved ones, the gourmet recipes he’d spent years perfecting, and a wide range of human emotions were simply wiped clean. But the basic framework of his personality had survived, which allowed Felicity to tap into his motivation centers.

  Her strategy involved old-school conditioning—simple, but effective. She decided to start him off easy, found a combat simulation from the archives and clicked “run.” The description of the simulation had horrified her, especially since it was based on a real event. But she had a feeling it was exactly what he needed. It would be painful, but through the pain, he would learn.

  She pulled her platinum blond hair into a ponytail, letting the strip of blue hang free. She cleared her throat then put on a headset and said, “Jarrod, can you hear me?”

  Jarrod was a ball of consciousness floating in the digital aether. He could not feel his arms or his legs. He couldn’t smell the room or feel the chair beneath his body. But he wasn’t worried—he had been here many times before, and he knew the sensation was temporary.

  “Jarrod, can you hear me?”

  It was a pointless question. He could hear Felicity’s voice, but he had no way of responding to her until the simulation loaded. Slowly, the rough edges of a red and green world came into view. As the details of a subtropical environment began to fill in, he felt the weight of gravity anchoring him to the ground. “I can hear you,” he said.

  “Okay, good. Does this simulation look familiar to you?”

  He had to think about that for a moment. Emily Roberts had put him through thousands of simulations. Finally, he shook his head, knowing Felicity would be able to see him on the monitor.

  “Do you know where you are right now?”

  He took a deep breath, tasting the simulated air. “Mozambique.”

  There was a brief pause. “That’s…that’s right. Are you sure you haven’t done this simulation before?”

  “I am positive.”

  “Dang, they really did a good job rendering the environment on these things. They could make a fortune in the gaming market.” There was the sound of fingers tapping a keyboard. “We’re going to do something different. I’m going to be loading a scenario, and I won’t give you any directions as to how you should proceed. But there is a right and a wrong way. Do it the right way, and I’ll reward you.”

  “I don’t understand. How will you reward me?”

  “With this…”

  Suddenly, an image appeared in the air in front of him. It floated just beyond his reach, then began to move.

  Deedee was on a red track with white lines painted on it. There was a subdued pop, and she broke into a run, edging past five other athletes in the 200-meter dash.

  Jarrod’s heart pounded in his chest. A sensation like pain coursed through his nervous system. But it wasn’t pain—it was something different. And despite the vast vocabulary that he could access with the speed
and efficacy of a supercomputer, he couldn’t identify the right word for it.

  He glanced down at his trembling hands, then back at the video. Deedee had won the race, earning her very first gold medal. Jarrod’s mother and father came into view, along with seven of his siblings. He was nowhere in sight, and though the memory was fuzzy, he had a feeling he had been holding the camera that day.

  For some reason, he felt as if someone was choking him. He swallowed and said, “Where did you get this?”

  “From a friend. And I have more—lots more. But in order to see the next one, you’re going to have to complete the scenario. Correctly. Got it?”

  “I understand.”

  She took a deep breath, and when she spoke again, there was anxiety in her voice. “This is going to be unsettling, and I’m sorry about that. Good luck, Jarrod.”

  He nodded and adjusted his armor to refract light. The world went blank for a fraction of a second, and when it reappeared, there were people all around him. The smell of smoke—burning plastic mixed with expended gunpowder—hung in the air. A crowd of people had gathered fifty yards to his left, forming a ring around something.

  Moving quickly but silently, he approached the crowd. Men and women stood shoulder-to-shoulder, pushing against each other and standing on their toes to see. One of the men near the front lifted his arm and hurled a rock.

  Then a sound—a terrible, tortured scream—reached Jarrod’s ears. The noise triggered a cascade of thoughts in an instant, rearranging his perception of the world around him. The people in the crowd, whom he had previously labeled as neutral, were instantly relabeled as targets.

  His body took on a mind of its own, coiling the muscles in his legs and launching himself forward. He landed in the center of the crowd, directly behind the man who had thrown the rock. Forming a blade with the metamaterial on his right hand, he impaled the man and lifted him into the air.

  The crowd reacted appropriately, staggering away from the spectacle. Jarrod swung his arm down, slamming the man into the ground. He glanced at the pale-skinned boy in the center of the ring and said, “Cover your eyes.”

  The child obeyed, and Jarrod reached out with a clawed hand to grab his next target. She was a woman, about twenty-four years old with short, curly hair. Holding her in place with his left hand, he used his right hand to split her skull in two—from top to bottom.

  Screams rang out all around him, and the crowd dispersed in every direction. But they had nowhere to run, and they couldn’t match his speed. Jumping from one target to the next, he tore them apart, severing heads and ripping chest cavities open. Soon, the ground was littered with mangled corpses and unidentifiable viscera.

  Jarrod took a deep breath, making sure he hadn’t missed anyone. They were all dead—all except the young boy who had been struck with the rock. Jarrod turned, making a move toward the boy, but the world went black.

  A moment later, he heard Felicity’s voice. It was thick and deep as if she had been crying. “I’m sorry, Jarrod, but I—I can’t reward you for that. You’ll have to try again.”

  Felicity looked on in horror as Jarrod began the simulation again. It was even worse than before. Instead of impaling the man who had thrown the rock, he landed behind him, tore his head off, and used the severed cranium to beat another man to death.

  She rocked back and forth in her chair, feeling a burning sensation in her chest. Turning away from the computer, she grasped at a garbage can and retched. Nothing came up but a few ounces of bile. She had already heaved her breakfast into the can during the last simulation.

  Wiping the acidic spittle from her lips, she glanced sideways at the computer. Jarrod was almost finished with the scenario. Twenty-three of the twenty-four onlookers were dead.

  As she watched, Jarrod leapt toward the last man and knocked him down. The man tried to crawl away, digging his fingers into the red soil, but Jarrod smashed his heel into the man’s back to pin him down. The vigilante crouched and used both hands to rip out the man’s shoulder blades. Then he used the bony plates to cut the carotid arteries in the man’s neck.

  Choking back another wave of acid, Felicity smashed the button to reset the simulation and said, “Again.”

  The next simulation proceeded like the first two. The crowd hurled stones at the young child with albinism—executing a witch, in their minds. And at the sound of the boy’s scream, Jarrod went Grade-A psycho.

  Felicity waited until the violence had ended then reset the simulation. “No reward. Try again.”

  Over the next hour, Jarrod made the same choices over and over. The only difference was the efficiency of his movements. Eventually, he was able to kill all twenty-four of the simulated people in thirty-three seconds flat.

  “Jarrod,” Felicity whispered, “you’re better than this. You have to be.” She rubbed her bloodshot eyes and hit the reset button. “Prove to me you have the power to choose, or I swear you will never see your sister again.”

  Jarrod lowered his head as the scrubby vegetation reappeared around him. Felicity’s words echoed in his mind, and he struggled to understand what they meant. He had assumed that his repeated failures in this scenario had been due to poor technique. But now he wasn’t so sure.

  She wanted him to choose, but he had chosen dozens of different patterns of execution to eliminate his targets. Could it be possible that she meant something bigger—to choose a different objective entirely?

  The concept was foreign to him. Ever since his transformation, he had followed the cues of his subconscious, which guided him indisputably to punish evil men and women. He relied on his training to accomplish the objectives, but he never felt capable of questioning whether the objectives were right or wrong. They were undoubtedly the most expedient, but were they right?

  The memory of Deedee’s race sent a bolt of lightning through his brain, forcing him to close his eyes. Maybe there was another way—an objective that was completely contrary to his nature that would be acceptable to Deedee. His mind raced through a thousand different scenarios, based on what he knew about Deedee.

  He came to a single course of action and knew she would approve. It didn’t feel right, and it certainly wasn’t logical, but Deedee would approve.

  The simulation moved forward, and the crowd of people appeared. Jarrod sprinted toward them, his armor glistening like carved ebony in the African sun. Ahead of him, the people jeered and shouted. The man at the front of the crowd drew his arm back, preparing to launch the stone. A wave of force traveled through Jarrod’s legs and into the ground, then he was airborne. The wind whistled past him, and he landed inches behind his intended target. His objective.

  The stone collided with Jarrod’s back, and the ring of people fell silent. The boy with ghostly-white skin looked up at him, and there was fear in his eyes.

  “Don’t be afraid,” Jarrod said in Portuguese, hoping the boy would understand. “I will not hurt you. And I will not let them hurt you anymore.”

  Tears flowed down the child’s face, and he wrapped his arms around Jarrod’s neck.

  The burly human weapon stood, holding the boy tightly. He glared at the crowd and turned slowly in a circle. “This child is under my protection. If you try to hurt him again, you will suffer tenfold. Step aside.”

  The onlookers pushed against each other as they fought to get out of his way, and Jarrod stepped through a widening gap in the crowd. He had no idea where he would go or what would become of the boy, but it didn’t matter. He had completed his objective.

  Suddenly, the simulated adults vanished. And a moment later, so did the boy. Jarrod stood motionless, waiting for the darkness to return. Instead, another video appeared. It was a recording of Deedee’s eleventh birthday party. This time, he saw a younger version of himself sitting beside her as she blew out her candles.

  When the recording finished, the world became a blur of gray, then faded to black.

  Instead of moving onto the next simulation, he felt himself being pull
ed back into his own body. Reality, unlike the digitized world, arrived in an instant, and he inhaled sharply. The scent of vomit was strong in the air, and beneath it, the exocrine signatures of several human emotions. Felicity grabbed him and hugged tight. He sat completely still, unsure of how to react. Felicity’s tears dripped onto his shoulder.

  There was no aggression in her actions. By her scent, he knew she wasn’t upset with him. These were tears of joy.

  He spoke softly. “I would have completed the scenario sooner if you had instructed me how to do so.”

  She pulled away, wiped her eyes with the backs of her hands, then let out a choked laugh. “That’s the beauty of it, Jarrod. You did this by yourself. You chose to ignore your instincts and your programming, and you took a different path.”

  Jarrod nodded. “I believe I understand the point of the exercise. It should not take me as long to complete the next scenario.”

  She moved away from him and took a deep breath. “Sorry, but this is it for now. I’m sure you could do this all day, but I’m a mess. I need tea, or maybe some sedatives and a bucket of ice cream.”

  The steel door slid open and she stepped into the hallway. Before the door closed, she glanced over her shoulder and said, “I’m proud of you, Jarrod. When we first met, I wasn’t sure if you’d ever be anything but a killing machine. But now…” She smiled. “Now, I know I was wrong.”

  22