Surrogate

by David Bernstein

  “Are there cameras in the hallways?” Jane asked.

  “Yeah, throughout the hallways, and at the entrance, but there’s going to be a glitch in the system tomorrow night.” Oliver smiled.

  “How do you—” Jane stopped herself. “What did you do?”

  “I’m friendly with the guard staff, most of them anyway. I bring them coffee and cake and whatever they ask for—extra money, you know? Anyway, there’s only one guard in the monitor room during the overnight. I’m going to slip him a little sedative in his coffee. He’ll be out for at least an hour.”

  “And if he doesn’t want coffee?”

  “He will. I always bring Mike coffee and cake. He counts on me for it. Keeps him up, he tells me.”

  “What if we just knocked him out?” Jane asked.

  “Jane, I don’t want to hurt anyone. I’m not a professional hit man. Just a dude who takes care of the ladies.” He winked.

  “I don’t like it,” she said.

  “I’ll hang out with him. Make sure he’s out, then I’ll come up to get you. There’s a clock over there.” He pointed across the room. “I shouldn’t be later than 11:45. So be ready to do whatever it is you’re going to do.”

  Jane nodded. “I’m counting on you.”

  “You still haven’t told me how you’re getting past the guards. We’re not hurting anyone, right?”

  “I’m an angel, sweetie. Do angels hurt people?”

  “No, I guess not.”

  “We’ll need a screwdriver, okay?”

  Oliver’s eyebrows came together. “A screwdriver?”

  “I’ll explain later.”

  18

  The next night, Jane lay in bed. She’d been restless all day, running on pure adrenaline and emotion, having not slept much since Oliver left the night before. She was amped up, ready to leave. She’d bitten her nails down to the skin. She was going insane. The last two weeks were pure torture, but her little girl kept her focused, sane.

  The clock on the monitor read midnight. Oliver was late. Flashes of him getting caught raced through her mind. She’d be on her own, trapped in here forever. They would want to study her, cut her open, and see what made her tick.

  Jane was starting to lose it, the room beginning to spin, when the door opened and Oliver came in.

  Relief flooded through her when she saw the look on his face, and she’d known he did it.

  “We’re all set,” Oliver said. “Mike’s out for at least an hour.” He was holding a backpack. He tossed it over to her. “Your new clothes are inside, as we discussed.”

  Jane slid out of bed. She held out her right hand. “Do you have the screwdriver?”

  Oliver pulled the tool out of his back pocket and handed it to her.

  Jane accepted it gratefully. She looked at Oliver. She reached up and put a hand around his neck. “I want to thank you, sweetie.” She pulled him toward her, and kissed him, then jabbed the screwdriver into the side of his neck. She felt him stiffen, then stabbed him again and again. He staggered backward, looking at her with unblinking eyes. “There’s only room for one on this trip.” Oliver collapsed to the floor, blood pouring out of him. He tried crawling to the door, leaving a trail of red behind, his clothes soaked in it. Jane jumped onto his back and sunk the screwdriver deep into his skull. Oliver stopped moving.

  One evil asshole down, she thought, then wiped off her bloody hand and the screwdriver, using Oliver’s shirt.

  She headed over to the door, opened it a crack, listened, then peered out. The hallway was clear.

  Jane grabbed the backpack and left the room. She passed by other doors, each one closed with only single-digit numbers on them. Other clone rooms, she thought.

  Reaching a bend in the hallway, she stopped. According to Oliver’s map, a guard was posted at the end of the hall in front of the floor’s exit door. Another guard patrolled the hallways and would be back in ten minutes. Jane placed her bag on the ground and removed her top, breasts revealed. She tucked the screwdriver into her pants at the small of her back, then walked around the corner.

  “Whoa,” the guard said upon seeing her. His mouth dropped open.

  Jane held a finger to her lips. “Shush,” she whispered. “I’ve been reading charts and playing with test tubes for too long. I need some fun, and thought I’d surprise one of you guys.”

  The man took a step forward, grinning, then his eyebrows came together. “Do I know you? Which floor do you work on?”

  Jane smiled and began playing with her hair as she continued walking toward the man.

  “Does it matter which floor, big boy?” she said.

  “You lab geeks are the ones my momma told me I got to watch out for. Freaks in the sack, eh?”

  “I’m so horny.” She stuck the tip of her finger into her mouth, then pulled it out slowly. “I haven’t been laid since…well I can’t remember when, and I need a good fuck. I thought you might be the man to give it to me.”

  The guard’s face was unreadable. She began to feel nervous. Maybe the guy was the no-nonsense type. “I don’t think this is a good idea, Ms….”

  “Don’t you want some of this?” she asked, thumbing her nipples. “I’m super-tight, virginlike.” She was within two feet of the man now, her heart racing with anticipation of the kill.

  “Screw it,” the guard said, and took Jane into his arms. They locked lips. Jane reached behind her, gripped the screwdriver tightly, then brought her arm up and stabbed the man in his neck. The guard shoved her away. Jane slammed into the wall. Blood oozed from his neck wound. “You bitch.”

  Jane steadied herself. She’d done damage, but not nearly enough. This guy was a fighter, shoved her off in seconds. She was worried he’d go for his sidearm, but instead he lunged forward.

  Jane met him head on, slipped under his grasp and connected a fist with his Adam’s apple, the screwdriver’s handle keeping her hand from collapsing. She backed up, avoiding a weak backhanded swing. The guard’s eyes bulged, his tongue popping out of his mouth. He stumbled against the door, then fell to his knees, clutching at his neck wound with one hand, and his voice box with the other.

  Jane charged at him, bringing the screwdriver up in uppercut fashion, and embedded the tool deep into the man’s right eye socket. The guard stopped struggling and fell to the floor. Blood continued to spew from his neck like a burst oil line. A pool of red was quickly forming around his body.

  Rolling the man onto his back, Jane went through his jacket pockets. She found his key card and a set of car keys. Stuffing them into her pocket, she slid the baton he was wearing free from the loop on his belt, then pulled his sidearm free, which turned out not to be a handgun, but a Taser. She’d feel safer with a regular gun, but might have to wait to snatch one off another guard.

  Jane stood on the corpse to avoid the spreading pool of blood. A red LED light shone on the door. She swiped the key card in the card reader. The red LED went out, and was replaced by a green one. Something within the door clicked. Jane grabbed the handle and opened the door.

  She was in a low-lit stairwell, the stairs traveling up and down in a zigzag pattern. On the back of the door was the number 5. She headed up two flights, passing the third level. She had no idea if a guard patrolled the stairwell, and needed to listen for footsteps. Eventually, the dead guard would be found, and she needed to be outside when that happened.

  Reaching the second level, she peered through the small rectangular window and saw another guard. A gun was holstered at his side. She ducked below the window and moved past the door and continued up the stairs. When she reached the first-floor access door, the key card she had didn’t work. Damn, she would need to take out another guard. Thinking for a moment, she came up with the simplest plan possible.

  Heading back down the stairs, she kept the Taser in her hand. She fired guns before, both pistol and rifle, and imagined the Taser was similar, point and shoot. Looking through the small glass window of the second level, she saw that the guar
d was still there. Taking a deep, steadying breath, she knocked on the glass. The man spun around in a flash, his sidearm out.

  “Help,” Jane mouthed. “Help me, please.”

  The man looked confused, then concerned. He stared at Jane. But she kept up the charade, glancing over her shoulder as if someone was after her.

  “Please,” she said. “He’s coming.”

  The guard went to open the door, his gun lowered. Jane hid the Taser behind her and backed away to allow the door to be opened.

  The man stepped out. “What’s—” he began, his words cut short when the two prongs of the Taser connected with his face. Jane pulled the trigger, sending the voltage into the man. He fell to the floor, convulsing. Jane continued to squeeze the trigger. The guy was in serious pain, groaning. Jane enjoyed watching the man suffer. He was another cog in this evil place’s machine.

  Releasing the trigger, she grabbed the baton, and beat the man’s skull in. Blood and hair mixed, sticking to the weapon. Jane was breathing hard and sweating, crazed. The guard’s face was a bloody pulp resting on a pair of wide shoulders. Unlike the previous guard she’d killed, this one had a real weapon, a Glock 19. It fired 9mm rounds and held over fifteen bullets.

  She stuffed the weapon into her pants, then pulled the man’s body into the stairwell, allowing the door to fully close.

  Jane rifled through his jacket and retrieved his key card, then headed up the stairs to the exit door. She slid the card into the reader and watched with delight as the red LED died, and a green one came to life.

  She opened the door slowly and stepped into what the plans said was the hallway that led to the basement of a colonial house. A row of single lightbulbs led the way. The cinder block walls were gone, replaced by earth and planks, reminding Jane of her grandmother’s old root cellar. The air smelled dank and musty. There were pipes along the ceiling, the floor was cement. She even spotted a few cobwebs here and there. The entrance was the perfect camouflage. No one would ever think the entrance to a secret underground lab was at the end of the cavelike corridor.

  She followed the lights to a set of cement stairs, and took them up to a common, paint-peeled door. There was no card reader. Jane grabbed the handle and turned the knob, expecting it to be locked, but it wasn’t.

  She entered a small, rustic-looking kitchen with an old-fashioned porcelain sink. An overhead fixture lit the area in a soft hue. A checkered tablecloth covered a square table in the center of the room. Glass cabinets filled with dinnerware lined one wall. Along the counter were a toaster oven, a blender, and a container labeled SUGAR. The room had two windows, both covered by dark maroon curtains. An oven rested between them. She had no idea if she was still underground, like some pretend surface room for the workers to feel more at home.

  Moving a curtain aside, she cupped her face and pressed against the window to get a look outside. It was very dark, but she could make out a driveway and a pickup truck.

  She moved slowly, tiptoeing out of the kitchen, gun in hand, and saw a man sleeping in a chair. An M5 machine gun rested on his lap. Jane grinned—the asshole had fallen asleep.

  Using her baton, she cracked the guy across the back of his head. He grunted and crashed to the floor. Jane picked up the machine gun, holstering her Glock into the waistband of her pants. She went through his pockets and found a pack of gum, twenty dollars, a pack of cigarettes and a lighter. She took the money and the lighter.

  Taking a quick look around, she saw that the house was unoccupied. A few chairs and a couch took up two of the rooms. There was a second floor, but she didn’t want to go traipsing around. She needed to get out.

  The front door had two single-cylinder Mul-T-Locks on it, making it easy for her to leave without a key. Ready to bolt, an idea came to her.

  According to Oliver, the place would self-destruct if under attack.

  Jane ran into the kitchen and checked the stove. It used gas. She turned the knobs and heard the hiss, then smelled the odor. Gas was filling the room. She grabbed a dishtowel from the oven’s handle, and went into the living room. Using the lighter, she lit the towel and placed it under the couch. She saw a magazine on the table and put it to the flames. The couch went up fast.

  Without wasting another moment, Jane headed to the door and left.

  She took a few steps from the house and stopped. She surveyed the area, taking in the dark field ahead and the barn to her left, seeing only a silhouette of the structure. In the distance, down the driveway, were forest and mountains. According to Oliver, there were no guards posted outside, the good doctors wanting the place to appear as normal as possible.

  Jane checked the truck for keys, looking under the sun visor, mats, and in the glove box, but found none. Just wanting to get away, she ran down the driveway, half expecting to hear the shot of a rifle and the sting of a bullet, but neither happened. But what she did hear was the explosion of the farmhouse when she was about a quarter of a mile away, the ground rumbling below her feet. She hoped her plan had worked. A detonation of that magnitude might just be enough to trigger the compound into thinking it was under attack.

  Feeling free, arms out like a kid playing airplane, Jane traveled on, taking deep breaths of the fresh night air.

  When she reached the road, she changed her clothes into the ones Oliver had procured for her. She knew the road; knew which way to go.

  Jane went left, passing by the place of her death. There was no sign of her accident. No written messages, no long-dead flowers, not even the remnants of a ribbon. No one had cared.

  19

  Jane commandeered a pickup truck outside a Stewart’s Shop in the small, nearby town of Port Henry. The keys were left dangling from the ignition, and whoever had carelessly done so had also left a purse on the passenger seat. Jane found credit cards, which she would discard out the window—she’d seen enough television shows to know the cops could trace them—and a little over a hundred dollars in cash.

  Fate had a role for her: to get back what was stolen and destroy the evil that had been involved. Yes, she had a different body, but that didn’t mean Jane wasn’t still Jane Nurelle. With this second chance at life, she had a renewed faith in herself, one she’d never known before. She was an unstoppable force. Failure was not a word she cared to know.

  No longer a ward of Ken or that lifestyle, free to choose who she was and what she was going to do, the new Jane decided to give herself a new last name. Jane Phoenix. Cheesy, but it fit.

  Jane stopped at the next town she came to, another small country hamlet, and used a pay phone to call information. She asked for the address of Dr. Kotrich’s practice in Newburgh, New York.

  The drive took three hours. With her being so far away from Port Henry, she felt relatively safe from being spotted in a stolen vehicle, as long as the plates weren’t run.

  Stopping at a few gas stations for directions, Jane found Dr. Kotrich’s office shortly before eight a.m. She was so close to ending it all, to finally being free and unhindered by her past. Once the evil doctors were out of the way, she could move onto the family that stole her little girl.

  She waited across the street from Kotrich’s office, sipping coffee from a sixteen-ounce Styrofoam cup. The doctor arrived ten minutes after eight, and went inside. Rage exploded inside Jane’s head as if a hot iron had been placed on her scalp. She wanted to rush into his office, strangle and stab the bastard, but held herself in check. The last thing she needed was for the authorities to show up and arrest her, or get a picture of her from the doctor’s video surveillance system, if he had one.

  Jane waited in the truck until six p.m., when Kotrich finally left his office. The guy was probably going mental, wondering why no one at the compound was answering his calls. Jane grinned, enjoying the fantasy playing out in her head. She would have to destroy his office and home too, knowing that he probably kept backups of all his files and research. Destroying the Agency compound was only the first step in making sure Dr. Kotrich’s work was
never again used, and making sure no one caught onto her.

  Jane followed Kotrich to a large colonial house that was well-hidden from the road, and situated in a heavily wooded area far from any town. After driving around the area, Jane discovered that the nearest neighbor was a quarter mile down the windy, backcountry road, making the doctor’s house the perfect setting for her to exact revenge, and complete her mission.

  Dr. Kotrich was the brains behind the Agency—the snake’s head—and in charge of all the evil that transpired within it. She found the whole state of affairs comical, and loved the idea of something righteous and good having been born out of wickedness. This gave her even more hope, the feeling that her situation would work out, that she’d be living a happy life with her baby girl soon enough.

  * * *

  Later that night, from behind a large maple tree in the backyard of Dr. Kotrich’s house, Jane observed the man and his family through the house’s windows. He had a wife and two boys, the children appearing to be around twelve and fifteen years of age.

  As the night wore on, she came up with a plan, and would need a day of preparation to see it through. Waiting proved torturous. She wanted nothing more than to kill the doctor, kill the people that had her baby. She dug her fingernails into her palms, feeling the sting, but kept on. Get a hold of yourself, Jane, she thought. She needed to focus, stick to the plan, and to hope that her baby girl was being treated well and raised properly. She had come so far, her destination close at hand.

  * * *

  The next day, she purchased a couple of roadside flares, and twenty gallons of gasoline, using four five-gallon gas cans to hold the flammable fluid.

  Needing a place she could lay low during the day, Jane scouted the back roads near Dr. Kotrich’s house. About two miles from the home, she stumbled on an old farmer’s field with a tire-worn path that ran along the tree line and extended into the woods, ending in a small clearing where a weather-beaten shack rested tiredly.