Path of Jen: Bloodborne

by Sidney Wood

  The center video enlarged to eclipse the rest of the screen and the camera zoomed in on Jena’s face until all of the focus was on her eyes. They were mesmerizing. Speaking in Farsi, Jena said, “Islam is the only true religion and Allah is the one and only true God." Najid slowly shook his head side to side in disbelief as he stared a his daughter’s eyes and listened to her declaration. Fouzia covered her mouth with her hand and let out a heartbreaking whimper.

  Jena continued, “By Allah’s command, we commit Holy Jihad. Death to America. Death to Israel. Death to all Infidels. Allahu Akbar." The camera stayed on Jena while deafening chants of “Allahu Akbar!” erupted around her. The video zoomed out and showed Jena looking around the room as the chanting continued and grew louder. The video abruptly ended and the conference room was quiet.

  Special Agent House broke the silence by clearing his throat and asking, “Well? Any thoughts?" He looked from Najid to Fouzia, and back.

  Najid stared straight back at him with genuine dislike. Without looking away, he reached out and took Fouzia’s hand in his. He squeezed it gently. She squeezed back with surprising strength and Najid knew she was barely keeping it together. The video was overwhelming in all of its horrific implications.

  The agent sighed in frustration and pinched the bridge of his nose. “Look, we have a whole team of experts analyzing this video. They’re looking for signs that she was under duress, or subtle signals that she may be trying to send. Sometimes there is something that is just off, like blinking, or words that are out of character. Maybe she is speaking with an accent or a lisp when she never did before. Maybe her eyes are wider than usual, or more closed." He began tapping on the table again. “Do you get what I’m saying here? This is your chance to help your daughter if you truly believe she’s not the Jihad Jane pinup girl they’re making her out to be.”

  Najid nodded. He was relieved to hear that the FBI was at least looking at the possibility that she wasn’t participating willingly. “We will need to watch it again…maybe a few times." Najid looked at Fouzia for her input and she nodded. “Yes,” he said. “Let us watch again. I can tell you already that she couldn’t speak Farsi before, but we’ll have to watch more closely to catch anything else.”

  Special Agent House looked at the techie and made a rolling motion with his arm. “Play it again."

  Chapter Eighteen

  Jen sat in her room glued to the TV, shaking like a leaf. Her fists were clenched and the veins in her forehead were protruding. For weeks, she regretted giving in to the Imam and his request for her to make a recorded statement. She felt unbearable guilt and shame. She spent many nights crying herself to sleep and many days praying for forgiveness. Over time the guilt and regret changed into something else. Each time she watched the edited video on the Jihadist network her TV was programmed to receive, she felt intense anger.

  “I was such an idiot to cave like that! Now the whole world thinks I’m some kind of evil psychopath! Ugh!" She slammed her fists on the bed and stood up. “And what? They think I’m going to be okay with blowing myself up? Really?" Jen dropped down and did thirty more push ups. When she was done, she lifted one leg in the air and did five more. She immediately rolled onto her side and did thirty side crunches. Without hesitating she switched sides and did thirty more. She did burpees, jump squats, v-ups and leg lifts until she thought she would drop, and then she sat and watched the video again. Before it was over she was up again, running in place as fast as she could. After two minutes, she switched to jumping jacks until she caught her breath and then ran in place again with high knees.

  Jen was sweating profusely, but she kept watching the video. The anger pushed her farther than she thought she could go. She exercised for two hours before finally turning off the TV. She stretched her taxed muscles and headed for a cool shower. While the refreshing water cascaded over her head and down her body, Jen wondered if her parents had watched the video. “Was it broadcast world-wide?" She put her head down and tried to imagine their reaction. It was too much to bear. She hoped that if they had seen the video, they didn’t recognize her. “What a testimony I have been,” she thought. “I’m worse than Peter, denying Christ." She sighed and whispered, “No, I’m worse than Judas, betraying Christ.”

  Like most days, her troubling thoughts washed down the drain with the last of the water and she found herself in a lighter mood as she stepped out of the shower. Her arms and legs felt like rubber as she toweled off. She laughed when she could barely raise the towel to her head to dry her hair, but she knew the exhaustion wouldn’t last long. Jen noticed her endurance increasing since she began working out harder, and she recovered much faster. The first week, she only made it fifteen to twenty minutes into her workout before calling it quits and heading for the shower. Now her workouts were much longer, and she actually felt better afterward.

  When she was dry, Jen dressed in her signature white dress and gold jewelry and waited for Maria to come get her for breakfast and her weekly blood draw. Since the video, the doctor had been drawing blood again. He said it was necessary in order to make as much of the vaccine as possible. Jen didn’t mind. “As long as something good comes out of all of this, then it will be worth it in the end." When she thought about the vaccine she helped create and all of the kids it could help save, it was possible to forget that she was pubic enemy number one to he rest of humanity.

  “Maria must be running late,” she thought. It was an hour later than their usual breakfast time and there was no sign of her companion. Jen heard heavy footsteps in the hallway coming toward her door. There was a knock.

  Jen considered donning her hijab and decided against it. “It’s probably Maria anyway,” she thought. Who else would it be?" She opened the door and nearly shrieked in surprise. In the hall, a nervous looking soldier stood holding a tray from the cafeteria. He was young, no more than twenty, with dark brown hair and reddish-brown eyes. He looked Jen in the eyes and then nervously looked away.

  “Oh wow, he’s cute!” thought Jen. “Geez, stop looking at his eyes Jen!" They stood there awkwardly for moment until Jen apologized for her rudeness and shut the door. She was nearly eighteen and she couldn’t deny that she noticed some of the men in this compound were handsome. “Too bad they’re insane…” she joked to herself. She put on her hijab and took a moment to glance in the bathroom mirror. “Ugh! I forgot to put on makeup!" Jen sighed regretfully and went to answer the door properly.

  The soldier held the tray out and Jen took it. “Why are you bringing this to me here?” she asked in Farsi. “Where is Maria? Am I not allowed to leave my room?" The soldier stood firm, although he looked for a moment as if he wanted to say something. After an awkward moment he motioned for her to step back into the room. Jen frowned and stepped back The soldier smiled and nodded his thanks for her cooperation. Then he grasped the door knob and quietly pulled it shut. She heard the locking mechanism click back into place.

  Jen stood in the room staring at the solid white door, confused and upset. Going outside was the high point of her day. “If I cant go outside, then what?” she thought. She took her tray of food and sat disappointedly at the desk. Jen unwrapped the hijab and tossed it on the bed behind her. She carefully ate her meal, conscious of the white clothing she wore, and considered what this change might mean. “Am I going to be treated differently now? Are they getting ready to send me somewhere or make me do something else?"

  At supper time the same soldier brought her a tray of food. Jen asked him the same questions, but he still refused to answer. An old woman in a black burka came after him and brought Jen a clean dress for the following day. Just like the soldier, she wouldn’t answer Jen’s questions. Her eyes were kind and somehow apologetic when she quietly refused to answer. The old woman left and the soldier closed the door.

  “Why is everyone acting so weird?” Jen thought after the door closed.

  Jen walked to the TV and flipped it back on. She was surprised to see Imam Hassan speaking to t
he camera. His message was short, but compelling. He emotively urged all followers to receive a special vaccination. “Judgment day is coming for the infidels, and Allah has declared that only his faithful will be spared. In the next month, a vaccine will be distributed to Muslim communities around the world." With conviction he counseled, “It is…wise to get this vaccine while you can. If you do not…" A close-up picture of Jen’s eyes flashed across the screen and then it went black. A few seconds later the message started again.

  Jen sat on the bed, suddenly numb. “Why is my picture being used to warn people to get that vaccination?" Jen looked down at her arm and pulled up the white sleeve. She touched the part of her arm where the doctor drew blood. She felt the vein underneath her skin as her mind raced to move this disturbing riddle. “My blood helped to create a vaccine…why would my image be a warning? I am supposed to be a warning to non-believers, but not to Muslims, right?”

  She watched the video again and felt no closer to an answer. Memories of visiting the doctor in his lab, being pricked by needles and watching the blood flowing out of her body, and still more needles delivering medicine or something else back into her body flickered quickly through her mind. She also recalled many nights hearing violent screaming, shouting, and then gun shots nearby. She remembered the acrid smell of smoke each morning after those nights. She thought of the video message she had recorded and the radical propaganda it had been made into. She kept seeing the image of her eyes flashing and then fading to black after the Imam’s warning.

  Jen kept mulling these questions as she ate her supper alone in her room. It was difficult to sleep and she turned the TV on a few times throughout the night to see if anything new was being played. After midnight the channel stopped broadcasting. She turned the TV off and left it off until morning.

  When she awoke, Jen went through her morning exercises and showered. There was a knocking on the door and she rushed to answer it. She didn’t want to spend another day cooped up inside her apartment, and she hoped to see Maria waiting in the hall. With hair dripping and wearing only a towel, Jen opened the door slightly and peeked out. “Oh!” she exclaimed when she saw who it was, and she slammed the door closed. In Farsi, she shouted “Just a moment, please!” and rushed to get dressed. Once she was dressed, without any of her jewelry or makeup, she opened the door and let the doctor in. He wore his lab coat and rubber examination gloves.

  “Please sit,” he instructed in English. “I want to check your vitals." He pointed to the bed and Jen sat on the edge obediently. He took a thermometer from the breast pocket of his lab coat and placed it under her tongue. Then he opened a black leather satchel he was carrying and withdrew a stethoscope and blood pressure cuff. As he put the cuff on her arm he said, “How have you been feeling? Okay?" Jen nodded. “Any headaches or nausea?" Jen shook her head. He began to pump air into the cuff and Jen felt it tighten on her arm. “Very good,” he said. “How are your energy levels? Are you feeling lethargic or more tired than usual?"

  “I feel fine,” she said around the thermometer.

  He nodded and listened to the stethoscope as he checked her blood pressure. The air slowly escaped the cuff as he twisted a small brass knob. He let the rest of the air out and removed the cuff. He pulled the stethoscope out of his ears and let it slide down around his neck. The doctor took the thermometer from Jen’s mouth and looked at it briefly before tossing it in the trash can near her desk. He pulled his gloves off and tossed them in the same trash can. “Now, for the big question." He pulled the chair from the desk and turned it around to sit in front of her. He sat down and looked her in the eyes. He seemed to be searching for the answer before he asked the question. Finally, he asked, “Can I trust you?”

  Jen was taken aback. “Can you trust me? Seriously? How could you possibly trust me? You all have me so mixed up I don’t know who or what I am! I am locked in this tiny room as a prisoner, yet you have me wearing jewels and fancy dresses like I’m somebody important! No you can’t trust me, because I can’t trust you!” she wanted to shout. Instead she looked him in the eyes and flatly said, “Yes, of course.”

  He continued staring into her eyes and finally looked away and stared at the wall, as if thinking. The doctor looked her in the eyes again and reached out to gently touch her arm. “Jenna, it is very important that you understand what we…what I’ve done to you." He withdrew his hand and took a deep breath. He let it out slowly and continued. “It’s dangerous for me…for anyone to be near you, Jenna. It’s dangerous for me to be telling you this." He leaned forward and said, “You are very special, as I told you, but it’s not for the reason I…" He stopped and looked at the door. He seemed nervous.

  “It’s okay doctor,” said Jen reassuringly. She needed him to finish telling her this. She needed to know the truth.

  “Jenna, you have helped develop an effective preventative vaccine; that much is true. But the vaccine was necessary only because you also helped to develop an impressively aggressive pathogen. One that causes a devastating illness, and most often death when introduced." He looked at her with intense concentration, as if willing her to speak.

  Jen wrinkled her brow and asked, “I helped make a virus?”

  The doctor nodded solemnly and explained, “Your body contained all of the antibodies and natural defenses that people in most first world countries possess. Using your blood as a test subject, we fine-tuned a virus that has been in the works for decades. We were able to make it particularly deadly to those with the same antibodies you possess." He began to get more animated and Jen could see that he was truly vested in this project. It gave her chills to see how passionate he was about it. “Jenna, we could have used anyone, but what truly made this work was that I chose you. Not only are you a young, attractive, and Muslim female, but you brought something to the project that I did not anticipate. Jenna, do you know that this has been tried many times before? We ran numerous trials on animals, even on wild animal in Kazakhstan! Do you remember hearing about it in the news? Sixty thousand antelope died practically overnight! They said it was caused by a bacteria,” he said excitedly. “Now you know what really happened. It was such a success that we moved immediately to human trials, but even after we developed a passable pathogen, they could not tolerate being a host to the virus. Only you, Jenna, have been able to successfully host the virus. Not only that, but the virus I was able to make from your blood is ten times as vicious as any other we have created. You must have heard the screams! It was brilliant!”

  Jen couldn’t move. She was more frightened than she had ever been at that moment. All she could do was listen and try not to fall apart completely.

  “Jenna, the test subjects we injected with the pathogen became uncontrollably aggressive and immediately infectious, quickly followed by a severe and debilitating fever. The symptoms were nearly instantaneous and presented the same in all twenty of them. One hundred percent died. In later testing, those we injected with the vaccine were initially aggressive, but not infectious. They succumbed to a fever as well, but many survived.”

  Jen’s fear began to wane and a spark of anger replaced it. It smoldered as the doctor spoke and fanned into hungry flame. Soon Jen was trembling with anger and she bit her lip to keep from betraying her true feelings with hasty words.

  The doctor placed a hand on her shoulder and said, “Jenna, you are truly a miracle! They cannot possibly prepare for the epidemic that you will spark with your sacrifice. You will bring the West to its knees and then watch from heaven as Islam conquers the entire world!”

  A tear escaped Jen’s eyes and ran down her cheek. The doctor smiled and Jen bit harder on her lip. She tasted blood. There was no thought associated with what happened next. It was not bravery or righteousness. It was not calculation or logical reasoning. It was simply a gut reaction to an impossible situation and overwhelming anger. Jen spit in the doctor’s face.

  It was as if she was watching a movie in slow motion. She saw a spray of red tinged spit
tle explode into the air between their faces. The doctor’s eyes tried to shut their protective lids against the airborne saliva, but it was too late.

  Jen realized what she had done as she watched the doctor blinking in surprise.

  “What did you do?” he shouted. “No!” he yelled as he stood and stumbled about the room. He wiped frantically at his eyes and face.

  Jen raced past him and locked herself in the bathroom. She heard the front door open, and a soldier asked what was happening. There was scuffling noises and then something heavy falling to the floor. Jen heard crashing and the sound of furniture breaking, and then there was a piercing scream. She heard more voices shouting and then coming closer. There was yelling, a scream and some gun shots. Jen crouched in the shower and prayed, “Dear God in Heaven, please save me! What ever this is, spare me! Let me go home!" She began to cry as she heard more screaming. More gun shots rang out. “Please, just let me go home!”

  The sounds of violence traveled farther and farther away. Finally it was silent. Jen strained to listen. “Nothing,” she thought. She stood up and cautiously opened the bathroom door and gasped.

  Laying on his back, with a gunshot wound to his chest and his eyes fixed open, was the young soldier that brought her trays of food the day before. In the doorway, the body of another soldier, sat slumped over and motionless. As Jen got nearer to him, she saw blood pooling beneath him. In the hall, the doctor was laying on his back. His head was moving side to side slowly, and he appeared to be sweating profusely. “The fever,” Jen thought. She looked beyond the doctor and realized she didn’t have a plan.

  “I need to get out of here, but how?” wondered Jen. She looked back to the room and saw the dead soldier slumped in the doorway. Suddenly feeling hopeful, she ran back to the room. She stepped past the soldier in the doorway and the dragged him backward into the room. “Dang, this guy’s heavy!" Once he was laid out, she searched him for anything useful. He had a gunshot wound to the hip, and a large open wound on his face. “Gross,” she said. Jen pulled the rifle sling over his head and set the gun on the bed. Searching his pockets, she found a black, pull-over mask and tossed it onto the bed as well. There was a pistol in a holster on his hip and a knife on his opposite hip. She tossed both onto the bed and moved to the next soldier.