A Mission Remembered

by Tanner Froreich

  My tormenter, who was preparing his tools, answered, “Don’t worry I’m not going to slay you.”

  I sighed. “Sorry, I wasn’t talking to you. I was praying.”

  “Praying! You think your God can protect you?” he mocked.

  “Yes, by either dulling the pain, by setting me free from this wretched body, or giving me the strength to endure. He will protect me.”

  “So, you don’t care what I do to you?”

  I closed my eyes as I recalled the verse: “I do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.” (Matthew 10:28)

  He chuckled. “The Grinders are right; you are going crazy.”

  Though he only mocked my initial prayer, I kept trusting in God. Every session after, I left my fate to God with the same words. As the days passed on, God gave me increasing strength to bear the pain, and the torturer’s scoffing dwindled until one particular day.

  The Grinders had dropped me off, and as I felt the electricity’s effect wear off, I murmured the same verse from Job. My torturer didn’t grab a scalpel or hammer, but a chair. He said, “How in the world do you do it?”

  “Do what?” I asked.

  “Not scream. The things I’ve done to you are near unspeakable, yet these past few days you’ve barely made a sound.”

  In humility, I said, “Yet if anyone suffers as a Christian, let him not be ashamed, but let him glorify God in this matter, 1 Peter 4:16. I do feel everything you do to me, but I know it cannot compare to the peace I will have when I stand before God.”

  “Your God--” he began to mock.

  “He’s your God too, whether you recognize His authority or not. He will judge all men in righteousness according to His Law.”

  “And you think cause you say and do the things he tells you; God will reward you?”

  “Absolutely not. He would not have shown any partiality towards my sin.”

  My self-condemnation surprised my captor, who expected some wonderful explanation for why my works please God.

  Utterly confused he said, “What? How do you move into the afterlife then?”

  I smiled and then strapped to that table, explained to him the biblical concepts of Heaven, Hell, Creation, Fall and Christ’s Redemption of sin. He barely said a word, and I was able to completely share the gospel with him before he spoke again.

  When he did, he muttered, “I can’t do this.” As he stood up and walked right past the table of tools, he pressed a button on the wall. Into the speaker he said, “Hey Tim, send in the Grinders to take subject IS-4031 back to his cell. I’m not feeling well.”

  Without another word, he left me and I was returned to my cell without a scratch. In my confinement, I praised God for His protection, and that He would move in the heart of my torturer.

  Chapter 20

  Escape

  There were no experiments the next day, or the day following. All my wounds had healed, and without any sedatives in my system, I was growing stronger by the hour.

  When I heard the all too familiar sound of footsteps, I prepared to try and fight my way out. I knew it would be futile, but I had to try. To my surprise, it wasn’t any Grinders. The man who stood in front of my cell was my own tormenter.

  “Why are you here?” I asked.

  Without even shocking me, he lowered the electric field. “I’m here to help you, but you have to cooperate.”

  He stepped into the cell and jammed a syringe into my neck, but there was no needle. “Go limp if you want to get out of here,” he whispered to me.

  I actually listened to him. Though I knew I shouldn’t trust him, the look in his eyes seemed different. He looked sane and healthy. He dragged me to the horrible torture chamber where so many injuries had been inflicted upon my body.

  He placed me on the examination table and said aloud, “There are some things not even IODINE wants to see.”

  He walked around the room and turned off the cameras that the room was riddled with. I tried to speak but he looked at me as he reached under cabinets and tables. He revealed several bugs and placed them in a little gray box he had in his pocket.

  When he closed it he said, “Eyes and Ears, that’s what this accursed agency should’ve been called.”

  I sat up on the table. “What are you talking about?”

  “I thought hard about what you said, and I’ve decided to help you. I...um… need to help you,” he said as he prepared another syringe, this one with a needle. He opened a desk drawer and pulled out a large piece of colored armored cloth. It was my old suit, the one I had seen in Mindsweeper’s hideout. “That belongs to you, and this too,” he added and tossed a blue face mask to me.

  “Are you saying you believe what I said?” I asked with a smile as I placed the mask on my face, which somehow stuck on without a problem.

  He smirked. “Don’t get ahead of yourself kid.”

  He stepped closer with the needle. I instinctively lurched backward. “What is that?”

  “Adrenaline. I need you on your A-game if we are getting you and your friend out.”

  “What friend are we talking about?”

  He looked out the window in the door to double check that no one was coming. “One Phineas Wong. IODINE let the other two go. But with the amount of information he knew about you and IODINE, they needed to keep him locked up until they figured out what to do with him.”

  I was almost overwhelmed with joy, but the excitement of seeing him quickly died as I realized I had been lied to again. I had been told he promised to stay quiet, but instead he had been kept a prisoner. I made mention of that to the man but he said, “I don’t know where you got that idea, but as far as I know, IODINE doesn’t allow loose ends like that.”

  I wanted more information, but he insisted that we had to get moving. Before we left the examination room, he injected the adrenaline into my arm. As the chemical flooded through my veins, I felt a jolt of energy, like I could run to the moon and back. He stuck his hand out to me. “I’m Greg, by the way.”

  I shook his hand. “Arphaxad,” I said as I laughed with the enthusiasm of a three-year-old on a sugar rush. “Let’s go!” In a moment, I had my old suit on.

  I went to push the doors open, but they were doors you pulled. When I pushed against them, I pushed so hard they busted forward off their hinges. I liked adrenaline.

  We traversed the halls, and very soon passed by the prison corridor where I had been kept. I remembered the poor creature that still sat in captivity. “We should get him out too.”

  Greg looked down the hall and shook his head. “I’m sorry, we don’t have the time. Security should be upon us very soon, and he is unpredictable.”

  “But we just can’t leave him!” I argued, but Greg was already running to the other door. Reluctantly, I left the stranger.

  Just as Greg had said, the first wave of security was just around the corner. They must have known where we were going. Pumped up with adrenaline, I made quick work of the agents. We traveled through the hallways, encountering guards along the way. Greg must have planned this out, because he never hesitated when we reached a fork in the road, nor did he have to second guess his passwords to get through doors and barriers.

  We finally reached the place where they kept the normal people. We passed countless cells with prisoners. I wondered how many of them were here unjustly.

  Approaching a corner, Greg said, “He should be just beyond…”

  Skidding around the bend, we realized that the enemies had gotten there first.

  A cold familiar face stared at me as he held a gun to Wong’s head. I asked, “Ethan, please let him go.”

  Ethan didn’t even flinch. “I was starting to like you Wallace. But really? First time back on your feet and you go rogue?”

  “I didn’t have a choice.” I responded. I was trying to work out how I was going to get the gun from him.

  “Don’t worry about me Arf, get out of
here!” Phineas shouted, only to gag as Ethan tightened the hold.

  Ethan fired the gun at me, but I dodged out of the way. “There is always a choice. Right or Wrong. IODINE only does these things for the greater good! Your friends were criminals in that country. Criminals require punishment!”

  “But Phineas is an American citizen! Shouldn’t he have been dealt with by the American government?”

  “Yes, and for all we knew he was. That is beside the point Wall-er- Arphaxad, our mission was to protect the Senator and you abandoned that mission!”

  I sighed. “I’m sorry Ethan, but I have remembered a greater mission, which requires you to let Phineas go.”

  He sneered. “And become like you two?” Turning his attention to Greg who was behind the wall. “You’re traitors!”

  He fired the gun at the corner, taking a chunk out of the wall, but missing Greg. Wong made his move. He reached up with a free hand and grabbed Ethan’s wrist with the gun. I rocketed myself at them and delivered a direct punch to Ethan’s face. He toppled backwards onto the ground.

  “We have to get moving now!” I stated as I looked towards Greg.

  “This way,” he motioned.

  We traversed the corridors on our way out. I didn’t know if it was the adrenaline or the joy of having Phineas back, but I think I was skipping.

  Phineas huffed, “How did you get out? Where did this guy come from?”

  I took a moment to plow through a locked door. “God’s work, not mine.”

  We continued to make our escape. Greg lead us to the garage and pointed to an exit. “Go through there!”

  Phineas moved forward first, as the exit tunnel was a good 400 ft. away. The sounds of agents could be heard echoing through the hallways.

  “Aren’t you coming with us?”

  Greg pulled a handgun out of his back belt, which was hidden under his lab coat until now. “Someone has to cover your escape. You’ll never make it on foot if someone doesn’t.”

  “We aren’t leaving you!”

  “Arphaxad, I’ve done a lot of evil in my life. I’ve been a coward for most of it as well, only harming the helpless. Those passages you shared, what God has done, inspired something deep within me, a courage that I had never known. This God you’ve spoken of has seemed to have filled me with bravery.”

  I smiled. “That’s the Holy Spirit, Greg, but we have to go. I’ll cover the escape, I’m faster.”

  The sound of an engine roared in the cave, and Phineas shouted in triumph. “IODINE needs to get vehicles that aren’t hotwire-able!” He looked over at us and added, “Don’t just stand there, get in!”

  Without argument, the two of us leapt into the Jeep. Phineas threw it into gear and the Jeep peeled out. Just as we approached the exit and were gaining speed, a gunshot exploded in our ears. I glanced back in time to dodge under the next bullet. Ethan was standing at the other end of the garage, gun drawn.

  We were moving now, as Phineas was pushing the vehicle as fast as it could go. Up ahead, the opening to the outside world was slowly closing; a steel door was coming down. We ducked as the door removed the top lights from the roll cage.

  The sunlight nearly blinded us. We were out of IODINE, but not the woods. I heard a helicopter above us as well as several other vehicles in the surrounding woods. The trails were a maze.

  Greg exclaimed, “Where are they!”

  Phineas shouted, “There’s ATV’s at five, nine, and three o’clock! There is also about three SUV’s on our six, approaching quickly!”

  It took me a moment to register all the foes Phineas had identified, but he was right they were everywhere with more to certainly come. I dug through the back of the Jeep, looking for anything we could use. I found a flare gun, first-aid kit, and flat tire repair kit.

  I showed them the items. “This is all I could find!”

  Greg looked back and smiled. “How quickly can you change a tire?”

  “What are you…Ohhhh.” I grabbed the lug wrench.

  I jumped off the jeep and zipped towards the oncoming SUV’s. In the blink of an eye, their tires were bounding into the forest and the rest of the vehicle skidded to a stop.

  The ATV’s were even easier with their exposed pilots. I sped through the forest and took out each rider. ATV’s are much less threatening without someone on them.

  I jumped back into the Jeep. “I think that’s it.”

  I had spoken far too soon, because we received a rain of bullets from the helicopter above. The bullets caused geysers of dirt as they struck the ground. Phineas weaved the Jeep back and forth to avoid the raining lead.

  I once again dismounted the moving vehicle with the wrench in my hand. I scurried up a tall oak tree and jumped from the top branch into the opened side of the helicopter. I couldn’t believe that I actually made it!

  I grabbed the gunner and tossed him out of the copter. He froze in space as soon as I let go of him. I grabbed onto the top of the door frame of the copter and pulled myself up. The blades were stuck in position. I jammed the wrench into the helicopter’s operating gears.

  I leapt down with an athleticism I didn’t know I had, grabbing branch after branch, flipping and redirecting energy until I reached the ground. Upon reaching the earth, I looked up and watched as the rest of the crew of the helicopter bailed and the craft went down. The pilot and the gunner fell into some trees, grabbing branches, but the co-pilot wasn’t so lucky.

  I caught up with Phineas and Greg to find out that though we were home free, Greg had taken a bullet from the helicopter. Phineas kept driving while I tried to stop the bleeding. The wound was far too severe to bandage.

  Greg winced. “It’s ok, I’m finally paying for all the wickedness of my life.”

  “Hey, you have to stay with us; we’re here because of you. You have to see the job done,” I said as he kept bleeding.

  He grew weaker by the second; all color had left his face. “I’ll be fine, what’s that you kept saying?” He took in a deep breath, “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him.”

  With that, Greg drew his final breath.

  Chapter 21

  The Woods

  I lowered Greg’s eyelids as Phineas continued driving. We had no way of knowing which way to go. With our guide dead, we soon found ourselves lost in the seemingly endless maze. IODINE must have purposely had some paths put in to either keep wanderers from finding their base or keep escapees from finding a way out.

  It wasn’t long before we ran out of gas. The Jeep sputtered and coasted to a stop. Phineas slammed his fist against the wheel, causing the horn to blare through the woods.

  “Shoot!” he muttered.

  I jumped out of the vehicle and looked around. I couldn’t hear anything other than the natural sounds of the woodland.

  “We should bury him.”

  Phineas looked back at the motionless body. He nodded. “Yes, but quickly; IODINE is bound to have trackers implanted in this Jeep.”

  It wasn’t long before we were able to find an area to make a shallow grave. After covering Greg’s body with stones, Phineas asked, “Who was he?”

  I stood there in a solemn stance. “I don’t really know. He was my torturer. The Holy Spirit must have used what I said to spark something in his heart.”

  “Do you think he was saved?”

  I shrugged. “I hope so, as he gave his life to give us ours back. He never had the chance to confess his salvation, so we can’t know for sure.”

  With a deep sigh, Phineas said, “We’ll just have to ask him in heaven, won’t we?”

  I nodded and heard engines in the distance. “We have to get moving now.”

  Phineas and I didn’t waste any time disappearing into the woods. By God’s grace, we found a stream. The water of providence provided two blessings – the ability to cover our tracks as well as possibly guide us out of the woods.

  If I was traveling by myself, there would be no problems, but there was no way for Phineas to keep up with me. Not
to say that he was slow, but he was. Also, after traveling seven miles downstream, fatigue slowly took its toll.

  I figured that we lost our IODINE pursuers, so I said, “Should we take a break? With the way you’re breathing, I think you need it.”

  “Now Arf, I know you’re nearly twelve years younger than me and you have powers, but don’t underestimate my endurance. I’ll out pace you any day.”

  I smiled. “Really?”

  “No,” he said shaking his head, “but I can keep going. I’ll let you know when I need rest.”

  The sun started setting before Phineas grew tired of traveling. “We need to build a shelter; we’re not getting out of here today.”

  Without another word, I used my speed to gather any building materials before Phineas could get out of the water. With a shelter built, I tried to start a fire, but Phineas reminded me we were still on the run. Phineas’ clothes were torn, my suit was fine, but my shoes weren’t. I had destroyed the soles during the escape and the day’s traveling had finished them off. There wasn’t even anything covering my feet, so I took them off and tossed them into the woods.

  “Where do you think we are?” I asked.

  “Based on the wildlife and temperature I would assume somewhere in the Midwest. What are your thoughts?”

  “I have no idea. IODINE did a good job of keeping things secret. All I know is that the base is a few hours’ drive from a place called Hollywood and about three hours by helicopter south from a place called Greenleaf.”

  A large grin exploded across his face, but the encroaching darkness concealed most of it. “Why didn’t you say that sooner! We may be closer to civilization than I had thought.”

  “Yes, but we are still in the woods.”

  “Why don’t you run down steam and see if you can find some people?” Phineas said as he leaned against a rock and took off his shoe.

  I thought it was a sound idea so I took off. At the speeds I was traveling, I wasn’t sure how far I had gone. However, as Phineas had said, it wasn’t long before I found a little collection of cabins. Upon further inspection, I realized it was a community of cabins, probably fifty or so spread across the area. I went back to the stream and ran back up it.