by Jude Hardin
For some reason, he felt a certain degree of warmth and nostalgia as he passed the rows of modest houses, even though he couldn’t remember anything about his childhood—or even anything about yesterday. Maybe it was something Dr. Aggerson had programmed into the MK-2, some sort of fondness for the altogether human concept of home. At any rate, the helicopter crash had knocked the electricity out for blocks, miles maybe, and more clouds had rolled in, blocking the moon and stars. To the unaided eye, the landscape was black as a skillet.
Mike could see fine with the internal infrared, although the unnatural green tint it threw on everything was starting to give him a headache. It was like running through a dirty aquarium. He switched it off occasionally, took short breaks from it and trotted along blind, using the sound of his footfalls to indicate upcoming obstacles.
He veered to the center of the street to avoid a parked cargo van, and as he did, a man holding a flashlight stepped out from behind the vehicle and said, “What’s your hurry, big fellow.”
Mike almost plowed into the guy. He stopped and ran in place to keep his rhythm.
“Just trying to stay in shape,” he said.
“What’s with the jacket?”
“It makes me sweat. I like to sweat.”
The man nodded. “Live around here?” he said.
“Yeah. Couple streets over.”
“Really? I’m pretty sure I’ve never—”
“I usually take another route. Well, gotta to go now. Have a nice night.”
Mike stepped to the side, and the man did likewise, blocking his way.
Mike’s first instinct was to throw a punch and knock the man out, but he decided to restrain himself. For the moment, anyway. He did not want to hurt this guy.
“Got some ID?” the man said.
“Are you a cop?”
“My name’s Joe Lowry. I’m the neighborhood watch captain. We’ve had some break-ins around here recently. Just trying to keep an eye on things, especially with the power out and all.”
“I left my wallet at home,” Mike said. “I don’t like to run with it in my pocket. I lost it that way one time.”
“What’s your name?”
“Mike.”
“You have a last name?”
Mike thought about that. He doubted the answer he’d given to Oberwand would fly this time.
“Two,” he said. “My name is Mike Two.”
It was all he could think of at the moment.
“T-U?” Joe Lowry said, spelling it out phonetically. “What is that, Chinese or something?”
“Yeah, it’s Chinese. I’m adopted.”
Lowry reached into his pocket and pulled out a little notepad and a short yellow pencil, the kind you use to keep score at the golf course. He held the flashlight with his armpit as he wrote.
“Could you give me your address?” he said.
Mike did a quick Internet search, found a street map of the neighborhood, told Joe what he wanted to hear. “I really have to go now,” he said.
“Sorry to bother you. Just seemed like a weird night to be jogging.”
“No problem.”
“Hey, did you hear the big boom about ten minutes ago, right before the blackout?”
“Yeah. Transformer must have blown.”
“That’s what I was thinking.”
Lowry stepped out of the way.
Mike ran on.
CereCirc was a little over twenty-six miles away, about the same distance as a full marathon. At his current world-record pace, he figured he would get there in about one hour and fifty-two minutes.
1 hour and 52 minutes before the blast…
Nika tried to raise the Styrofoam coffee cup to her lips, but her hands were trembling too much. She set the cup down, hoping this was all some kind of horrible nightmare, hoping she would wake up soon.
As usual, she’d arrived for her shift at CereCirc twenty minutes early, and as usual she’d been the first nightshift employee to clock in. As she approached the security desk on her way to the clinic, she thought it odd that the guard wasn’t there. It was against regulations for the desk to be unattended, even for a short period of time. When the guard on duty took a bathroom break or whatever, he or she was supposed to find another employee to sit there for the duration.
But of course the guard hadn’t really gone anywhere. He was there. He just happened to be lying on the floor in a puddle of blood. Nika had grabbed the phone and called the emergency code, but as she was punching in the numbers, she knew any sort of resuscitation attempt would be futile. She could tell by looking at the guy that he’d been dead for a while.
Blaine, the dayshift nurse, came running down the hall with the crash cart, and she and Nika went through the motions, but it was no use.
“Where is everyone?” Nika said.
“They had a party, with champagne and everything, and then everyone took the rest of the day off.”
“Everyone?”
“I think so. Everyone except me and the guard and Dr. Aggerson.”
Nika tried to get in touch with Aggerson, but he didn’t answer either of his phones, and he didn’t respond to the page she voiced over the intercom system.
Also very unusual.
By the time the physician on call and the in-house paramedics made it in, the entire nightshift had congregated in one of the conference rooms, waiting to find out what was going on. Some of them were crying, while others sat silently stunned. Their emotional responses varied, but they were all shaken to the core over what had obviously been a violent attack on the security guard.
Then, when the news came that Dr. Aggerson had also been murdered and that the human test subject for the MK-2 was missing, things got even worse. One of the women actually fainted, and fear swept through the room like a tidal wave.
Had a group of terrorists overrun the facility? Were they still here? Was everyone in the building going to die?
Now, a little over two hours later, Nika was sitting in a dimly lit office near the chemistry lab, waiting for her turn to be interviewed by someone from the CIA.
The CIA.
This night just kept getting more and more bizarre.
Nika sat there with the cup of coffee in front of her, staring at the gray wall on the other side of the table. A few more minutes ticked by, and then a man in a dark suit opened the door and walked into the office and sat across from her. He thumbed through the file folder he’d carried in with him and pulled out several sheets of copy paper bound together with a staple.
“Nika Dunning?” he said.
“Yes.”
“What kind of name is Nika? Is that Russian?”
“On my mother’s side. Her family defected from the Soviet Union when she was very young.”
The man nodded approvingly. “I’m agent Masterson. I just need to go over a few things with you, and then you can go home. Okay?”
Masterson. Probably not his real name, Nika thought. She didn’t trust any of these government types.
“Do you know what happened yet?” she said.
“I’m not at liberty to go into any detail, but I can tell you that two more casualties have been found, a chemical engineer named Cara Skellar and the test subject known to you as MK-2.”
Nika put her hand over her mouth, shocked at the update, overwhelmed by the gravity of the situation.
“They’re both dead?” she said.
“I’m afraid so. We don’t have a lot of time right now, so I’m going to make this brief. Another agent will come to your house tomorrow or the next day for a follow-up.”
“I don’t want anybody coming to my house.”
“Standard procedure. I can assure you that we’ll make every effort to respect your privacy.”
Nika stared into her coffee. “This is unbelievable,” she said.
“Here’s what’s going to happen, Ms. Dunning. Tonight, after we’ve cleared everyone out of the building, there’s going to be a massive explosion, followed by a
fire that will destroy most of the facility. The media is going to be told that Dr. Aggerson, Dr. Skellar, MK-2, and the security guard died as a result of the explosion, and it’s imperative that you never tell anyone otherwise.”
“But that’s a lie. Why—”
“It’s a matter of national security, ma’am. That’s all I can tell you right now. We’re asking everyone to sign a non-disclosure agreement.”
He passed the papers, along with a black ball point pen, across the table to Nika.
“What about the animals?” she said.
“Animals?”
“There’s a room on the other side of the building with animals in cages. Monkeys, cats. You can’t just—”
“They’ll be relocated. Don’t worry about it.”
Famous last words, Nika thought. She skimmed through the document on the table in front of her.
“What if I don’t sign this?” she said.
“We’ll have to take you into custody tonight, and you’ll be detained pending further counseling.”
Further counseling. Probably a code name for something. Torture, or brainwashing, or maybe even a trip to the bottom of the river. Or, maybe those who refused to sign would be found with Aggerson and the others after the building was blown to smithereens.
Which brought up another question.
“CereCirc runs two twelve-hour shifts,” Nika said. “How are you going to explain that there were only four people in the building at the time of the explosion?”
“Dr. Aggerson threw a little party this afternoon, to celebrate the MK-2 going live. After the party, he sent everyone home. He was planning to do likewise with the night shift. So, as it turned out, you wouldn’t have been here tonight anyway. We got kind of lucky on that deal. The security guard would have still been on duty, of course, and we’ll just make it appear as though Dr. Skellar stayed late working in the lab.”
“Okay,” Nika said. “If I do sign your agreement, what’s going to stop me from telling the truth tomorrow? Or a year from now? Or ten years from now?”
“If you ever breathe a word of this to anyone—and I do mean anyone—you’ll be tried for treason, and you’ll spend the rest of your life in prison. All you have to do is keep your mouth shut about this, Ms. Dunning. That’s all we ask.”
Nika picked up the pen, flipped to the back page, and signed on the dotted line. She didn’t want to, but she didn’t feel as though she had much of a choice.
“There,” she said, handing the papers back to Agent Masterson. “I’ll never say anything to anyone for the rest of my life. I promise. Can I go home now?”
“We appreciate your cooperation, Ms. Dunning. Like I said before, another agent will follow up with you by the end of the week.”
“Great. Am I free to go?”
“You’re free to go.”
Nika stood and turned and opened the door and walked out to the hallway. She didn’t see anyone on her way to the exit, and the only sound she heard was the squeak of her own sneakers on the freshly buffed tile floors. When she got to her car, she rested her forehead against the steering wheel and cried, knowing nothing would ever be right again, knowing nothing would ever be the same.
1 hour and 41 minutes before the blast…
Mike was hungry, and he was thirsty. Mostly, he needed something to drink. He was getting urgent messages on the holographic display, bold red warnings that his body had crossed the threshold to the first stages of dehydration. He didn’t want to stop anywhere, but he had to. Otherwise, he would collapse long before he reached CereCirc.
He needed water, and he needed a fresh set of clothes. The cops were looking for someone wearing black sweat pants and a black t-shirt and a black leather jacket. He needed to change before he did anything else.
He checked the maps, found the nearest sporting goods store, sprinted through several residential lots and hurdled several chain link fences on his way to Kirby Parkway, where he was able to switch from infrared back to normal vision. He slowed to a trot, cut through a bank’s drive-through, and took the sidewalk to Jock World on the corner.
He walked inside. A man wearing black cargo pants and a royal blue football jersey stood near the entrance. His nametag said Kelly. Assistant manager. The store’s logo was printed on the front of the jersey.
“We close in ten minutes, sir,” Kelly said. “Just to let you know.”
“Locking up by yourself tonight?”
“What can I say? It was my turn.”
“Where can I get a shirt like that?” Mike said.
“This is our employee uniform, sir. We don’t sell these.”
“Then give me yours. And I’ll take the pants, too.”
“Excuse me?”
Mike pulled the pistol from his jacket pocket and pointed it at the man’s chest.
“I don’t have time to shop,” he said. “And you look to be about my size.”
“You want my clothes?”
“I’m not a thief. I’ll pay you for them.”
Kelly raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Look, man, whatever it takes to get you to put that gun away, all right? Tell you the truth, I’m not exactly Mr. Clean myself. I had a football scholarship to Vanderbilt, you know, but then—”
“Lock the door,” Mike said. “You’re closing early tonight.”
Kelly locked the door. “I don’t want to die,” he said.
“You’re not going to die. Let’s go back there by the shoes.”
They walked to the back of the store. Kelly sat on a wooden bench and disrobed while Mike grabbed a pair of New Balance cross trainers and tried them on. The shoes that had been issued to him at CereCirc were dotted with Cara Skellar’s blood now, and he didn’t want to risk being seen in them. He hurried into the cargo pants and the blue jersey, pulled some shoestrings from a rack and forced Kelly to lie on the floor, on his stomach, while he hogtied him from behind. After that, he smashed Kelly’s cell phone with his heel and found all the landlines and Internet hookups and yanked the cords out of the wall. Just in case.
“You’re going to leave me like this?” Kelly said. “There won’t be anyone here until ten o’clock tomorrow morning.”
“You’ll live,” Mike said.
Before he left Jock World, he found a dark blue windbreaker and a box of shells for the Ruger. He felt like a new man. Now he could walk into a convenience store and buy a bottle of water without the worry of being instantly identified.
He counted out a hundred dollars from the cash in his pocket, dropped it on the floor where the store clerk could see it. Assistant manager, Mike reminded himself.
“You’re that guy, aren’t you?” Kelly said. “You’re the guy they’re talking about on the radio. Something about a high-speed chase and a helicopter crash.”
“Yeah,” Mike said. “I’m that guy.”
“There’s already a reward being offered for information leading to your arrest. Twenty-five thousand bucks.”
“Great.”
“Just thought you might like to know.”
Mike grabbed his dirty clothes and stuffed them into the trashcan by the door on his way out. There was a CigsMart on the other side of the street. He stood at the corner and waited for the light to change, crossed Kirby Parkway and pushed his way through the swinging glass door. Walked back to the drink cooler, grabbed a Gatorade in one hand and a bottle of spring water in the other. The lady at the register asked if there would be anything else, and he said no.
He walked out to Kirby, chugged the sports drink as he crossed back over to Jock World. He’d thought about some things while standing in line at the convenience store. If the story was on the radio already, then it was on TV as well. Or it soon would be. The local channels for sure, and CNN probably had a crew on the way. He needed to get to CereCirc as soon as possible. He needed a car. He’d lost a lot of time, and he wasn’t sure how much of his face that first cop had seen, the one in front of the abandoned restaurant. He was concerned that an
artist’s rendering would be plastered all over the airwaves soon, and that everybody in town would be on the lookout for him.
He walked back in to Jock World.
“I need your car,” he said to Kelly.
“You took my clothes, and now you’re going to take my car? What’s next, my girlfriend?”
“I’m a United States Navy SEAL, and I’m on a very important mission. There’s a lot at stake here. You’ll just have to trust me on that. I’m one of the good guys. I promise. And like I said before, I’m not a thief. You’ll get the car back.”
Kelly laughed. “Take it, man. The keys are right there on the floor where you left them. It’s the white Honda Civic parked over in the side lot.”
Mike grabbed the keys, walked outside and found the car. He unlocked the door and climbed in, saw right away that it was a standard transmission. He stared at the shifter knob for a few seconds, realizing with alarming certainty that he didn’t know how to drive this thing.
He performed a quick scan of all the programs Dr. Aggerson had loaded, but there was nothing about driving a stick. He could fly a 747, but he was lost behind the wheel of a five-speed automobile. He must have never learned to drive one in his former life, and now wasn’t the time. He could just see himself lurching and stalling all the way down Kirby Parkway as he tried to master the skill of shifting with a clutch. It would be like carrying a banner that said HERE I AM, OFFICERS! COME AND GET ME! Not going to happen.
He thought about it for a second, decided to force Kelly to drive him to CereCirc. It would be faster than running, and he wouldn’t have to stop for drinks every few miles.
He left the keys in the ignition, slammed the car door shut, headed back toward the entrance of the sporting goods store. When he got to the sidewalk, an approaching car slowed and the driver took a long look at him. Young, petite, blond hair, beautiful. It was Nika, the nurse who’d taken care of him before and after surgery at CereCirc. Mike turned, trying to hide his face from her, but it was too late. She’d already seen him.
