Invasive Procedures

by Aaron Johnston

  The only Healer who didn’t come was the one guarding the agents. Frank positioned himself so that the Healers’ backs were to the buses and their attention on him. “As you all know, we don’t have a full Council.” He put his hand to his forehead. It was the signal; he only hoped Hernandez had seen it. She apparently had. He saw her unsnap the aerosol sedative from her hip. Frank said, “I propose that we elect among ourselves two who can take the places of Nick and Hal on the Council.”

  Hernandez stealthily approached the Healer guarding them and sprayed him in the face. Four agents were there to catch him silently and drag him out of sight.

  “This will be a temporary assignment, of course,” said Frank, holding the Healers’ attention. “We will make two more copies of George Galen as soon as possible. But we need a leader for each of the five groups until then.”

  The agents split up and silently got on the two buses. Hernandez got behind the wheel of one, and Byron positioned himself in the seat behind her. She looked out the window at the second bus. An agent was at the wheel, giving her a thumbs up.

  Frank saw that the agents were ready, and addressed the Healers. “I’d like to nominate Stone and Lichen as possible replacements. They’ve served me faithfully for a long time. Does anyone object to these nominations?”

  The Healers seemed content with this suggestion, and no one more so than Lichen.

  Frank held out his hand. “Stone, relinquish your weapon. As a Council member, weapons are below you.”

  Stone, the largest and strongest of all those gathered, slung the tranquilizer gun off his shoulder and handed it to Frank. Frank checked the cartridge and saw that it was full of darts, then shot five darts into Stone’s gut.

  Stunned and confused, the Healers gasped, recoiled. Stone stiffened, then the tranquilizers took him, and he fell unconscious to the floor. It was the final signal, and Hernandez must have seen it, because a second later, both buses roared to life. The Healers stumbled backward as Frank continued firing, taking down three more before the others realized the buses were escaping.

  Byron was thrown forward as his bus slammed into the hangar door and ripped it off its track. Bus windows shattered. People screamed. The hangar door fell atop the buses, then slid off their roofs as the buses surged forward.

  “Hold onto something,” said Hernandez.

  Byron steadied himself and grabbed the pole behind the driver’s seat. He looked out the window just as a Healer jumped onto the side of the bus, smashing his hands through the windows to get a hold. Another Healer joined him, and the bus leaned to the side from their weight. Hernandez swerved with the wheel to compensate.

  A third Healer exploded through the door of the bus, landing on the steps near the meter and showering Byron and the first few rows of passengers with broken glass. With one hand on the wheel, Hernandez drew her weapon and fired repeatedly into the Healer’s chest, sending him back out the door and rolling away onto the dirt.

  Passengers continued screaming as Hernandez shoved the weapon at Byron. “Make yourself useful.”

  He gripped it, stumbled down the steps, held the doorway with one hand, and leaned out of the vehicle.

  The Healers hanging by the side of the bus saw the gun and dropped away.

  With all the excess weight now gone, the bus rocked straight again, jerking Byron and nearly causing him to lose his footing. He gripped the doorway and steadied himself.

  A chorus of sirens sounded ahead of them, and Byron looked in their direction. A row of law enforcement vehicles was speeding toward them—squad cars, unmarked cars, BHA vans, SWAT Humvees.

  “There’s your cavalry,” said Hernandez.

  “You called them already?” said Byron.

  “We called them before we left. You think we would have tried this alone? They’ve been out of sight, waiting for us to remove the hostages and virus.”

  Using her comlink, she told the other driver to stop. The buses slowed, and agents in biosuits hustled out of the BHA vans and loaded the buses, confiscating the two trunks and calming the passengers.

  Byron followed Hernandez out. She took an assault rifle from one of the agents and climbed into the back of a van.

  “You’re leaving?” he asked.

  “We still have a man inside.”

  Byron climbed in beside her. “I’m coming with you.”

  “Not this time. Help calm those civilians.”

  She closed the door and the van sped away.

  Frank continued firing into the crowd of Healers until the gun was empty. The plan had been to take out the most threatening Healer first. And that had worked flawlessly; Stone lay unconscious at his feet. And since no other Healer had been armed when Frank started firing, he had easily picked off several others. A few had run after the buses, and a few had run outside, trying to simply escape. They had no chance of getting away, Frank knew; the entire airfield should be surrounded by now. And this time the authorities knew what they were up against. If they had followed Frank’s advice, they had come equipped.

  Carter ran for cover behind a stack of discarded debris, and Frank put three tranqs in his back, knocking him out and sending him crashing to the floor unconscious.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Frank saw Dolores duck into a side room. He hurried after her. He had to sedate her before an overly eager police officer took a shot at her or before, acting as Galen, she did something drastic in the face of defeat.

  He ran through the doorway and entered a poorly lighted metal workshop where spare plane parts were once made or repaired. Several rusted lathes were positioned around the room, as well as other large iron machines for shaping and cutting metal. Everything was decades old. There was a flash of movement to Frank’s right, then something hard and metallic struck him. He felt himself break in several places and then crash into some shelves along the opposite wall.

  The shelves crumpled on impact, and heavy tools fell all around him.

  He lay there a moment, trying to orient himself. His head throbbed. It hurt to breathe. He tried to get up but couldn’t. The pain was too intense. He lifted his head and spat blood.

  Dolores emerged from the shadows.

  “I’ve tried to consider your point of view, Frank,” she said. “I really have. I’ve racked my brain a hundred times, and I still can’t get a handle on you BHA people. Do you have any idea how many hundreds of people we could have cured every day together as the Council? How many lives we could have bettered?”

  She made a face. “Does it please you to know there are sick children in this world? Is that it? Is that what you want? Are you some kind of sadist or something? You get a kick out of seeing people die slowly of fatal diseases? I’m changing the world, Frank. I’m empowering people. You may not agree with our religion, but you can’t deny the fact that we’re doing good. And now you’ve wasted it. You took something good and you destroyed it. You took the last hope for millions of people and flushed it down the toilet. I don’t care what you think about me, Frank, but that makes you the bad guy.”

  Frank struggled to all fours.

  “Science saves, Frank,” said Dolores. “Always has. And yet, whenever that spark of discovery appears, civilization also poops out someone like you, someone who crashes the whole thing to hell, and people who didn’t have to die, do.” She put her hands on her hips. “Your daughter would be real proud of you right now, wouldn’t she? Daddy just screwed the world.”

  “Stop talking like you’re him,” said Frank weakly.

  “I am him!” said Dolores. “I am George Galen.”

  Frank pushed himself up to his knees. “No, you’re not. You only think you are. Your real name is Dolores Arlington, and you’re one of the bravest women I know.”

  “Dolores Arlington is dead.”

  “You don’t look dead to me. Come on, Dolores, you think I just fell off the turnip truck? I know a living person when I see one. Trust me, you’re nothing like George Galen. And a good thing, too.”

&
nbsp; “Oh yeah? And why is that?”

  “Because George Galen, Dolores, is a phony, a snake-oil salesman, a big bag of gas. He pretends to be this great savior of the people, this harbinger of health, this cure for human suffering. But in reality, George Galen cares about none of those things. All George Galen cares about is George Galen. Heal the world? Please. More like heal George Galen’s incredibly low self-esteem. He’s so unsure of himself, so insecure in his ability to persuade people to his way of thinking that he makes a way to force people to obey him. He talks about healing children, but what he’s really doing is making slaves.”

  “But Lichen and Stone and—”

  “Oh sure, he’s got a few friends who follow him around because they choose to and not because they’re coerced, but so did Adolf Hitler.” Despite the pain, Frank managed a grin. “And the funny part about the whole thing, the real knee-slapper of this whole affair, is that old George Galen worked so long and so hard at his con that he began to believe the lie himself. He actually fell for his own scam. He convinced himself that he really was a savior. But that’s not you, Dolores, is it?”

  “I . . . I don’t know.”

  “No, that’s not you. Dolores, you’re different than that. You care about people. You’re genuine. George Galen thought he could take your mind away. He thought he could replace it with his own. But he didn’t. He can’t swipe your mind. All he did was add some of his memories to yours. That’s why Hal was still Hal, even when George Galen convinced him that he wasn’t Hal anymore. Galen can’t take our minds, Dolores, not if we don’t let him. Look at your hands.”

  She looked down at her hands.

  “Are those George Galen’s hands? No, they’re not. Now touch that face. Is that George Galen’s face? No, it isn’t. He’s trying to push your mind aside, Dolores. Now you have to push back.”

  The pain had subsided enough for Frank to stand. “You remember the laundromat? You remember what Byron said? He said you were one of us. And he’s right. You’re still one of us, Dolores. But George Galen? He’s one of nobody. Because he doesn’t exist anymore. His time is up. He had a chance, but then he blew it. There is no George Galen. George Galen is dead.”

  She stared at him a long while, her bottom lip quivering. Then she buried her face in her hands and cried. “I got bad luck,” she said through tears. “Nothing but bad luck.”

  Frank went to her and put his arms around her.

  BHA agents stormed into the room, guns drawn, but Frank gave them an all clear and they lowered their weapons. After that, he just held Dolores and let her cry.

  33

  AGENT

  Dr. Kouichi Yoshida walked into the lobby of the US Bank Tower in downtown Los Angeles wearing a navy, pinstriped suit and carrying a wicker picnic basket. He had bought the suit only minutes before, at a men’s clothing store around the corner, for eleven hundred dollars. It was a ridiculous price, especially for a man still up to his neck in student loans and credit card debt, but Yoshida felt it appropriate for the occasion and hadn’t batted an eye at the price tag. He had paid in cash and tipped the clerk a crisp one-hundred-dollar bill.

  To the people in the lobby, Yoshida appeared to be just another young, sharply dressed investment banker. Thousands of men in similar attire came and went from this building every day, and to everyone here, Yoshida was simply another face in the crowd. This was how Yoshida wanted it, of course. He wanted to blend in. It was unlikely that his face had shown up on any wanted poster so soon after the ordeal—and even less likely that anyone here would have noticed such a poster even if one had been posted—but Yoshida wasn’t one to take chances. He left his sunglasses on and walked toward the elevators with a determined step—as if he knew exactly where he was going and made the trip every day.

  The security guard seated behind the marble counter didn’t look up from his sports magazine as Yoshida passed. It was a tiny victory, but still Yoshida felt a rush of adrenaline as he realized one hurdle had been cleared. Yoshida had decided before entering the building that if the security guard did indeed recognize him, Yoshida wouldn’t run. He would simply submit and allow himself to be arrested. He had never been a fighter—or a runner—and now wasn’t the time to start.

  Only, Yoshida didn’t want to be arrested. He couldn’t endure the humiliation. There would be a media frenzy, with flashing cameras and microphones thrust in his face as federal agents escorted him to and from the courtroom every day. Then CNN would, no doubt, interview all his past mentors and professors and ask them if they had believed Yoshida was a monster when he had been under their tutelage and, if not, how in the world could a man of such promise go so bad so quickly?

  No, Yoshida couldn’t stomach it. Wouldn’t stomach it. He was guilty, yes, but he would decide his own destiny.

  In the elevator, a few people looked suspiciously at the wicker basket, but Yoshida returned their inquisitive glances with a friendly smile. He had tied a red ribbon onto the handle in the hope that it would lead people to believe that the basket was a gift, filled with fruit, perhaps, or cheeses. The guise must have worked, because no one said a word, and Yoshida made the ascent without incident.

  The top floor was the seventy-third, and when Yoshida reached it, he was alone. He stepped off the elevator and found the nearest window. The view was breathtaking. It was sunset, and Yoshida was on the tallest floor of the tallest building in all of Los Angeles. Below him, cars crept up the 405 like a long line of army ants.

  He left the window and meandered through the halls until he found the door marked Roof Access. The door was locked, of course, but Yoshida had anticipated that. He removed a pouch from his pocket and opened it in his hand to reveal various picklocks. Yoshida choose two of appropriate length and design, and after a little tinkering, the lock snapped free and the door opened. A short flight of metal stairs took him up to the roof.

  The view from the roof was even better. To the west, the sun was disappearing into the horizon, dipping into the ocean like a giant orange out for a swim and laying a white shimmering glow across the surface of the water. It was beautiful, and Yoshida felt his eyes tear up despite himself. He stood there, unmoving, taking in the wind and the sight and the smell of the city until the afterglow faded and night came.

  Now Los Angeles was a blanket of twinkling lights in every direction. Yoshida gazed up at the sky and marveled at the faint stars. Light from the city made it difficult to make out many constellations, but Yoshida was able to identify a few and felt content at having done so.

  Finally he sat and opened the wicker basket. Inside was a takeout box of mongolian beef from PF Chang’s, his favorite restaurant, and a bottle of expensive wine. Yoshida rarely drank wine, but it seemed to fit the occasion. He ate slowly, savoring the flavor, and drank only half a glass of wine before corking the bottle and setting it aside. A fortune cookie came with his take-out order, and Yoshida cracked the cookie and unfolded the thin rectangular piece of paper.

  You are destined for great things.

  Yoshida smiled, folded the paper neatly, and tucked it in the breast pocket of his coat. Inside that same pocket was a small vial. Yoshida pulled it out and held it close to his face. The vial was empty and had been for several hours. It shook slightly in his trembling hands. The trembling would get worse, Yoshida knew. Much worse. It always did. And Yoshida had tired of it. He had tired of many things—most of all, the master. He hated the master. He despised him. And when he had heard that the surviving vessels had been found and treated, Yoshida had felt a deep relief. They deserved their lives.

  Yoshida wanted his life as well. But not badly enough, not enough to go to the BHA. Some of the people the prophet had taken advantage of were being treated there, but Yoshida knew he didn’t belong among them. He had done too much, wronged too heavily.

  He tucked the vial back into his breast pocket, wiped his mouth with a napkin, stood, and straightened the knot in his brand-new two-hundred-dollar necktie. There was no wall at the roo
f’s edge. The roof floor simply ended, a straight drop to the bottom. Yoshida looked west again, toward the ocean. There the black water melded with a black horizon, looking to him like the end of the world and the beginning of space. Filling his lungs with a final breath of high-altitude air, Yoshida ran toward that space. As fast as his legs could carry him.

  Frank drove to the Federal Building and entered through the rear entrance without the security guards even asking for his ID. The jumpy one insisted on escorting him to the elevator and even pushed the button for him. Other people in the lobby watched him as he passed and then whispered to one another when they thought him out of earshot.

  Frank thanked the guard politely and rode the elevator alone to the bottom.

  Ten minutes later he was being ushered into the director’s office, the new director, who had wisely chosen a new space for her office, far from where Irving had had his. She apparently didn’t want any of his negative influence hanging over her.

  It had surprised Frank that a new director was chosen so quickly; it had only been a few days since Irving’s unfortunate demise, but already the boys on Capitol Hill were trying to rectify the media disaster that was the BHA.

  “Dr. Hartman, I’m Director Nichols. Please have a seat.”

  He did, noticing new furniture also. There was not the faintest hint of Irving in the room.

  She leaned forward from behind her desk and smiled politely. “Agent Atkins informed me of your honorable discharge from the military. Should I offer my condolences or my congratulations?”

  Frank, who had been taking in his surroundings, looked at her intently for the first time. She was the kind of woman who wore clothing that accentuated nothing except the fact that she didn’t want you looking. Dark heavy fabric that showed little skin yet plenty of poise. It didn’t make her unattractive. It simply communicated that she wasn’t interested in using her appearance as a weapon of influence. She was saying, Yes I’m a woman, but that’s not why I have your attention. Simple brown hair. Thin face. Tight lips. Not a scrap of jewelry.