The Eyes of Little Birds: The First Nick Wolfe Sci Fi Adventure (Nick Wolfe Adventure Series Book 1)

by Ross H Henderson

  Tom wasted no time in getting out to one of his favorite hunting sites in the low rolling hills of southwest Alaska.

  The winter was a cold one, but it was good to be out. Tom usually had no trouble finding a place to be alone with his thoughts, but being outdoors, isolated from everyone, and with the thrill of the hunt to distract him during the day; he found it easier to think clearly. At home there had been nothing to think of but the memory of Craig’s death, rendered in living nano-clarity.

  On the second morning of the trip he shot a moose that weighed about 1,600 pounds and was probably 9 or 10 years old. It was exciting, but it happened so suddenly. Tom had been tracking the big moose, but did not expect to find it so quickly. His new eyes were able to detect any movement, especially in a quiet place like this. Tom was also vaguely aware that a wolf was tracking him, but once the shot was fired it was all over. The moose was down, and the wolf had run off.

  The morning’s events found Tom tired, but satisfied. He would field dress the moose, go back to his campsite, load up his truck, head back toward civilization, and drop off the moose to be butchered. He would get about 500 pounds of meat out of this and an impressive trophy… for someone, maybe the butchers. Tom didn’t keep many trophies. At the time, he only had one in his home, a caribou from his third hunting trip. He had since killed more impressive animals, and many of them, but that one was his first. It was the most special one, and marked the day when he became a man in his father’s eyes. The meat was always good, though.

  The memories this trophy would hold already seemed bittersweet, and Tom knew he wouldn’t want to see it again. He was happy to keep 100 pounds of meat for the freezer, and donate the rest.

  Tom was able to dress out the moose relatively quickly and had just finished loading it in the truck when he heard growling behind him. He turned slowly to face the wolf that had been tracking him. He was unusually thin for a wolf. Tom couldn’t see why this wolf would track him or why he would be so thin. Game was plentiful. Maybe the wolf was too sick or old to track his own quarry. In any event, he meant to eat as much of the moose as he could. If he had arrived a few minutes sooner, Tom could have left him the meat he wanted.

  The wolf advanced almost imperceptibly toward Tom, who was slowly reaching for his buck knife to defend himself. The two combatants stared each other down for what seemed like forever. Tom knew that his chances of survival would drop once the sun went down, so he couldn’t stand there all day. He yelled at the wolf, “Hyaaah! Get out of here!” The wolf growled and barked back at him angrily. Another wolf howled in response in the distance. Tom looked in that direction out of instinct, and immediately realized his mistake. By then it was too late. The wolf leapt at Tom with surprising speed, and pinned him down.

  The wolf started to lunge for his throat but Tom stabbed the wolf in the belly just in time. The wolf’s wound was not deep, but smarted enough to get him to back off a few steps. The sudden jerking back caused Tom to lose the knife, which landed about ten feet away.

  Now Tom and the wolf were back to where they started, feet away from each other, face to face, but Tom no longer had his knife. He was resigned to his fate and told the wolf, “I’m all out of tricks. Do what you’re going to do.”

  There was a slight whimper and a long, high unnatural growl as the wolf’s nose bled. He stood there trembling, but otherwise locked in place until his head suddenly exploded in what looked like a pink spray. Tom wiped hot tissue and blood from his face as chunks still fell from the sky and the rest of the animal slumped over. Blood spread out in the snow as it drained from the wolf’s neck.

  Tom would have to cut the trip short and leave the entire moose to the butcher. He needed answers now from Dr. Davies or Dr. Curtis, and some help from an old friend as soon as possible.

  Chapter 5

  Nick Wolfe was an easy man to find. He had the same address in El Paso, Texas, since returning to civilian life two years ago, and had kept in touch with his friend, Tom Vincent. Not consistently, but consistently enough. The two had been close in high school, before Tom went to Alaska and Nick went to war. Nick had a girl at home, but it was an on-again, off-again romance, starting when he would come home from a tour of duty “for good this time,” and ending with him going back to the fighting. His relationship was a mess; after the divorce Mary moved away with their son and didn’t tell him where.

  He was good at fighting and drinking and seemingly not much else, but he was clear-minded and in control on the battlefield, if only of himself. He did what he was told, and if an order wasn’t specified, he would find his own way to solve problems and could be assured it wouldn’t be questioned. Everything was black and white to Nick Wolfe. There was no place for emotions or the complexities of relationships, nor was there the backbiting of the corporate world, or even the politics that went on at bases like Fort Bliss, for that matter. He learned long ago that most so-called leaders don’t lead at all.

  Nick rose to the rank of sergeant while fighting in Iran, but was recruited as a mercenary as his four-year commitment to the army drew to a close. It was everything he liked about the army, but without all the red tape. Strategy, problem solving, combat, and the pay was incredible. On his first mission he made more than his first year in the army, which admittedly wasn’t much, but as the jobs got bigger, so did the paychecks. He also received the latest weaponry and technology from BioMek Horizons, who seemed to finance every military conflict in the world. He had more money than he could spend in a Swiss bank account, and only allowed himself a modest, army sergeant-like salary so his friends and family wouldn’t know what he really did for a living.

  His team was a tight-knit one that looked out for each other. No man was expendable, as all brought different abilities to the table. They were mercenaries, but this team was as much a club as anything else. Nick’s drinking had gotten out of control, and he was advised to take a break, dry out, and rejoin the team when he was ready. That was two years ago.

  All of that seemed like a distant memory this morning. Nick was hung over. The air conditioning in his apartment was out; so even at 9am it was uncomfortably warm. His disheveled state didn’t completely hide who he was, but it came close. Nick was not in the best shape of his life, but he was still in better condition than most. His military haircut had grown out to a more civilian length, with a fairly pronounced widow’s peak of dark hair. His hazel-green eyes were bloodshot and weary, but it was nothing some eye drops and a little hair of the dog couldn’t cure.

  The day was coming into focus, and the down-and-out ex-soldier was starting to become aware of why he was awake and walking toward his front door. The doorbell was buzzing incessantly and whoever was there had no plans to leave until his business had been taken care of.

  “Nick Wolfe?”

  “Yes. What can I do for you?”

  “I have a letter from Tom Vincent.”

  “This couldn’t wait?”

  “Not according to Mr. Vincent. His instructions were very specific.”

  “Well, I suppose I should sign for it then…”

  Chapter 6

  Nick,

  I need your help. I’m either in trouble or I’m losing my mind, but either way I need your help.

  I don’t know if you heard what happened to me on the rig last year, but to make a long story short, I was blinded and given a new set of eyes from BioMek Horizons. The eyes work great, but sometimes if I look at someone for too long they die of some kind of massive brain hemorrhage. I’m afraid I could kill someone else so I’ve chosen to keep my eyes closed and covered at all times, at least if someone else is in the same room.

  I’ve talked this over with my psychologist and the surgeon who performed the surgery and both are convinced this is a coincidence. All their tests show that there is nothing wrong with my eyes, so that leaves only a few possibilities: it really is all a coincidence, I’m going crazy, or BioMek has made me an unwitting assassin by installing some kind of death ray in my eye
s.

  I’ve tried repeatedly to gouge out my eyes with various tools, but they’re made of nanorobots and keep rebuilding my eyes, no matter what I try, usually within a few hours. I think if I got every bit of my eye, they wouldn’t grow back, but how can I be sure about that when I’m dealing with microscopic robots?

  Can you come up and help me figure out what’s happened to me? You know warfare and espionage tech better than anyone. I’ve been very careful since deciding I need to know what’s going on. I write or type without looking at my hands. If someone else can see what I see, I don’t want him able to read my correspondence, to know my plans, or to see your face.

  Thanks, buddy. I owe you one.

  Tom

  Forty-eight hours later, Wolfe was at the doorstep of the Vincent house in Nome. Tom answered wearing a thin blindfold and dark glasses. If his eyes had been open, Tom still would have had no idea about Wolfe’s state when he received the letter. He was now sharp, alert, and had trimmed his hair back to its original crew cut length. In short, he was ready for action.

  After a brief exchange of pleasantries both men were ready to get down to business: Tom, because he was desperate for answers, and Nick, because he wanted to move with a purpose again.

  Tom began, “So, off the top of your head, can you think of any reason why or how my eyes could cause people and animals to die?”

  Nick asked why something like this would even be needed since drones of all sizes, from the size of a small plane down to the size and shape and shape of an insect, could be deployed almost anywhere in the world without human help.

  “Almost anywhere,” Tom continued. “A drone would have challenges up here in Alaska and out at sea, especially in winter.” Wolfe had tried to remember all the experimental weaponry provided by BioMek Horizons. Most of the equipment had rendered traditional warfare obsolete.

  There were drones and heat-sensing landmines. There were smart guns with bullets that could turn corners to hit a specific target. There were autonomous drones on the drawing board for a very short time; this idea was scrapped. A drone with artificial intelligence looks a lot easier to control on paper than in actual practice.

  Shortly afterward, extremely small drones were created that were not autonomous, but directed toward a target externally in much the same way a target can be “painted” with a laser from the ground for a missile to home in on. There was no room in such a small device for traditional “intelligence,” only a microscopic chip with a limited series of instructions starting with “follow the light,” and ending with “dig” or “drill.” These drones were terrifying to watch due to their sheer numbers. Wolfe recalled seeing the drones rise up from the ground like a small tornado and consume a guerilla that had strayed too far from his group. There was what looked like a small cloud at the man’s feet, and he reached down to swat the irritation away, then he simply fell over. When the soldier fell on his back he flung his arms outward, and Wolfe could see his feet were missing and the hand that reached into the “dust cloud” was also gone. The stumps glistened with thousands of nanodrones consuming everything in their path, even the blood flow. By then the poor victim was engulfed in the man-size tornado and barely had time to scream, “¡Madre de Dios!” before he was dead, then gone without a trace. Even Wolfe was surprised at how quickly it happened.

  While these newer weapons were all terrifying, they were still no match for a few well-placed nukes or conventional weapons if you were trying to win a war. These were weapons better suited for espionage or peacetime applications. Even a small mercenary group like Wolfe’s found these weapons impractical most of the time, and said so when asked by the company about the performance of the equipment. The answer was almost always that it did what it was supposed to, but it wasn’t as effective as a machine gun or a flamethrower.

  Wolfe wondered for the first time if BioMek figured more heavily into these missions than he thought. At the time he just thought of it as having new toys to play with. He used to enjoy technology and finding new ways to do his job. It also felt somewhat prestigious at the time, like an athlete’s endorsement deal, but without the formalities and fame.

  “So let’s review,” Tom said, interrupting Wolfe’s train of thought, “BioMek Horizons has been concentrating on weapons that can be used in secret, but there are people they can’t reach, either because they live in inhospitable environments or in cities where the infrastructure has been designed to detect drones and deal with them swiftly.”

  He continued, “About the tiny drones, you mentioned that thousands of them reduced a man to a skeleton or less within a minute or two. Could just one or two of these drones do any damage under the right set of circumstances?”

  Nick replied, “Maybe if one went in your ear or up your nose. They’re so small it could probably enter through your eye and you wouldn’t notice.”

  “…But they would need to be guided externally, right?”

  “Yes, at least until they reached their target. Then programming would take over. Such a small unit would take forever to kill someone by digging, but I bet if it exploded in the right place, it would cause the symptoms you describe right down to the 8-ball hemorrhages in the victims’ eyes.

  “I think my eyes are the tracking system,” Tom said. “One of those little bugs could be anywhere to start: my clothes, their clothes, luggage – anywhere, just waiting for a message to wake them up and get them started. I also believe that anything I see can be seen by someone else.”

  “God watches us...,” Wolfe muttered.

  “Come again?”

  “It’s this expression my grandmother used to say, ‘God watches us through the eyes of little birds.’” Wolfe continued, “Well, that’s a pretty good theory, but that’s all it is. How are you going to prove it?”

  “I don’t plan to prove anything, but I do want to shut it down. How would you stop drones, especially so many at once?”

  “You go after the command center, where the nanodrones are directed from, and who have the ability to spy through your eyes. That’s where the drones are directed from, and that’s where they monitor the feed from your eyes. I have a very small electromagnetic pulse device, or EMP, courtesy of our friends at BioMek Horizons, that will emit a magnetic blast that will take out all electronics in a 100 foot radius.”

  “That sounds useful.” Though Tom could not see Wolfe, he could picture his face as he remembered it, along with the gestures he was probably using to describe the EMP blast, “But the building is probably one giant Faraday cage. There’s no way an EMP is going to get through.”

  “That’s right. That’s why we have to do it from the inside. Just make sure you’re far enough away when it goes off or your eyes will shut down too. I’ll need your help to get through the building and deal with security threats.”

  “When will we do this?”

  “I’m not sure, but it would be good to have time to plan.”

  Just then the phone rang.

  “Hello, Tom. This is Dr. Davies. Have you had any trouble seeing in the last few weeks?”

  “As a matter of fact I have, Doctor, and I’ve been meaning to call. Should I come down and have my eyes checked out?”

  “Yes, immediately.”

  “Okay I’ll be down in a few days.”

  Chapter 7

  By now, Tom and Nick were both very familiar with the BioMek Horizons building, but it felt like a different place to them both as they entered it together this time. Dr. Curtis, the psychologist, appeared shortly to greet them both.

  “Good Afternoon, Tom. Who’s your friend?”

  Wolfe introduced himself, in case Tom was feeling nervous, “Nick Wolfe. I’m a friend of Tom’s. I’m just helping him out for a few days until we get his eyesight back on track.”

  “Excellent. One can’t have too many friends.” Despite Wolfe’s history with the company, Dr. Curtis didn’t know who he was due to the clandestine nature of his job, and the fact he hadn’t been in the build
ing in the last two years.

  A tall, thin man in a close-fitting Italian suit soon accompanied the group. In direct contrast to his crisp appearance from the neck down, his red hair seemed to shoot out in all directions, mostly up. His blue eyes seemed to rise up from his cheekbones while still not meeting his upper eyelids, making him look the slightest bit … unhinged. The man’s crooked smile made him look even more manic. He looked not so much like a man out of control, but more like a man who enjoyed chaos. He was familiar to both men, especially since a 20-foot painting of him graced the front lobby. Dr. Curtis was well conditioned by his profession and his company’s culture to take nothing for granted, so he went through the trouble of introducing him anyway.

  “Gentlemen, I’d like you to meet Tristan Evans, CEO of BioMek Horizons.”

  Evans picked up from there, “Mr. Wolfe, it has been too long.”

  “Thank you, sir. It definitely has.”

  “What brings you back to New Seattle?”

  “Just helping out my buddy until we can get his eyesight fixed.”

  “Yes, the equally illustrious Tom Vincent. How is your eyesight?”

  “Not bad right now. It comes and goes, though. I don’t trust myself to drive a car right now so Nick has agreed to watch out for me.”

  “Is Maggie no longer up to the job?” Tom was briefly taken aback that Evans used his wife’s first name despite never having met her. Under the real circumstances and reason for his visit it sounded like a veiled threat.

  “She’s visiting family and couldn’t make it this time.” In fact, Tom had sent her out of town before writing to Nick. He also made sure he didn’t know where she was going. If he didn’t know it, he couldn’t betray it.