Virtually His

by Gennita Low

  “Agent 51, can you hear me?”

  One needed quiet when one was remote viewing. It was hard enough to do it in a van full of electronic equipment that disturbed his senses. Didn’t his monitor understand that he needed a modicum of silence? Some kind of white noise filter would be helpful.

  But no, time and again they interrupted him with loud discussions about what was going on. He was pulled back in each time, catching drifts of conversation about what was happening inside Deutsche International.

  Rage and frustration coursed through him. He couldn’t savor those delicious emotions in the energy spectrum. They were still going way too fast. And the fucking guys were constantly interrupting. This last time almost made him yell at them. Having a hard-on for so long with no relief was painful. Didn’t they fucking know that? He needed to find a way to slow the images down…get some relief…so he could…More snippets of conversation cut through his focus.

  “What the hell is going on at that place? The list HQ faxed me has some big-time names on it.”

  “I suspect COS Command Center has something to do with it. Security overload is perfect for a heist, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, but they’re taking a chance with so many people on alert in there.”

  Shut up! Shut the fuck up. But if he said what was on his mind, they would get mad and might not use him anymore. He had to be good, bide his time with this thing. Double dosage. He mustn’t be greedy. He had plenty recorded from the earlier session and he could spend all of tonight rewinding and rewinding and rewinding…

  “Agent 51, you’ve been quiet for a while now.”

  “They always look like they’ve fallen asleep when they’re doing this. How do you tell the difference?”

  “As long as he answers when I talk to him.”

  He’d better say something then. “I can hear you.” Maybe he could be tactful with his request. It was too late anyway. Opening his eyes, he added, “But you need to speak softer. I can’t sense very well when there’s so much noise around me. You pulled my whole consciousness back here and I’ll need ten minutes to get back into RV mode.”

  His monitor studied him for a moment, then nodded. “You’re right. I apologize for the interruption. Are you sure the key’s still there?”

  He knew it was still in the building. As for the location of that room he saw…he hadn’t been able to pinpoint it exactly. “I’m sure it’s there,” he answered truthfully, mentally crossing his fingers that they wouldn’t push him for the location. He elaborated more, hoping it would satisfy them that he knew what he was talking about. “I see the same long dark shaft. Same enclosed tunnel and space. I sense the point of entry to that place in a very high-up location.”

  “So the key’s still up at Weber’s office somewhere then?”

  “I don’t know who Weber is but yes, the key is around there,” he hedged.

  “You’d better be right, 51,” his monitor warned. “Now, what could we do to help you get back into RV mode? The drug’s still good, right? You’re feeling the beginnings of downtime, right?”

  “Oh no, I’m okay, sir,” he said, “but I need to go to take a piss, splash some water on my face.”

  “We don’t have the time for that,” the other man said impatiently. “I thought you psychics could control things like that.”

  “I’m not a psychic, sir,” he told them, feeling somewhat indignant. What, did they think he was just someone they picked up from the Yellow Pages? “I was being trained in surveillance when I was reassigned by the director. I don’t have any psychic abilities at all. We’re specially trained for—”

  “Oh, cut the crap. Just get back into whatever you want to call it. You’re a trained professional, right? You can suck in that piss for a while longer. Go on, 51, show us your tricks.”

  He didn’t care whether this guy was one of his monitors or not. His attitude was pissing him off. A monitor was supposed to be the guiding hand, a person he could trust to help him if he encountered problems while remote viewing, and this man just wanted to use him.

  Fine. He had been desperate to help because he wanted that drug so much, but now that he had some, he felt he was in control again. He could play them the way they played him; he could withhold information from them until absolutely necessary. Why not? The idea was brilliant! That way, he could get more of the serum because they would want him to help them.

  Ignoring his pressing hard-on, he took in a deep breath and focused inward. He’d just have to figure a way to get off while he was in the ether.

  Switch to Channel Three. Set programming time. Set channel.

  Timer on. Record.

  “I’m ready,” he said.

  “We’ll talk quietly, 51, promise,” the first agent, the one who seemed to be more understanding, said. “What do you see?”

  Hot damn. The key’s coordinates weren’t the same. It was being moved! “I’m zooming in,” he said. “Many people milling around the ground floor. I have to concentrate on which ones are your targets. Give me a few minutes.”

  “Good. We know they have operatives watching on the perimeters. We’re keeping our eyes on them. We need to know which exit point they’re taking so we can mount a surprise attack of our own.”

  “Okay,” he said. Change channel. Change channel.

  He was back in that vaultlike place where the electronic key exchanged hands. Except that this time, the two men who were working on them were dead. He didn’t move nearer. He could feel emptiness in them—no energy. One was lying on the floor. The other was sitting down, hands tied, a piece of tape hanging off the side of his mouth.

  He hovered closer to the one in the chair. This one was recently dead, the last one to go. There was still a little energy left but he was careful not to go too near and touch it. Out of curiosity, he had done it once before. He shuddered at the memory. No, that kind of energy wasn’t beautiful.

  However, this man was probably the last to see what had happened to the electronic key and he needed to touch something close to him that he’d used prior to death. The chair? No, too close.

  The blinking light from the intercom on the desk. Someone was trying to contact him and from the looks of it, he had probably been trying to be rescued…hmm…when he was interrupted by his killer. Well, too late for him. The last thing he touched was probably the button answering the intercom. Where was it?

  He hovered closer, warily, making sure he didn’t get too close. He saw the electronic pad dangling by its wires on the side of the desk toward the dead man. Slowly, carefully, he reached out and touched each of the buttons on it.

  He withdrew his hand quickly. Death energy. Yeah, the man was talking into the intercom when he was interrupted. But he didn’t understand German, so he had no idea what the words yelling in his mind were about. And he didn’t particularly care. He’d caught the image of a hand pulling the key out of the decoding device.

  Record. Where was it? He saw stairs. Someone was moving it up…no, down a long flight of steps. Many, many flights. A stairwell. He would go there.

  Change channel.

  Monotonously running down flight after flight of stairs freed Helen’s mind to quickly review what had taken place. She was totally focused on the exercise at hand, very aware of each turn of the stairway, yet a part of her appeared to be observing herself. The more she hurried, the more cut-off that part seemed to be.

  She found herself thinking calmly, as if she was not running at all. It had to do with the serum, of course. She was injured. The drug was somehow kicking in.

  The serum had an unusual dichotomy. On one hand, it impeded sensation. Helen couldn’t feel any pain, even though she knew, from the way her right leg wasn’t properly supporting her weight, that she was hurting. On the other hand, it didn’t totally block out all emotions. Her usual warped sense of humor was still there. Also, she had reacted to Number Nine’s presence quite strongly.

  He had pissed her off, standing there like that, not doing a d
amn thing to help her. Not that she needed his help. It was those eyes looking at her with disdain, like he knew she would be a problem. And then to find out he was going back down for “unfinished” business—that irked her the most, that he’d been sent to do something she hadn’t been capable of doing.

  It was her fault that the operation had gone somewhat chaotic. If she had cancelled that man in the vault, there wouldn’t have been any alert about what was happening and she wouldn’t have had to fight with that operative in the elevator, and this Number Nine fellow wouldn’t have had to move from whatever position he was in so he could save her ass.

  She supposed she had to thank him for that. The idea of saying that to his face filled her with dismay. Maybe she could send him a postcard.

  Dear Number Nine, thank you for saving my ass.

  Helen chuckled quietly as she jumped down the last few steps. She didn’t even know his name.

  “Are you all right, Hell?” De Clerq asked.

  They were probably wondering why she was laughing when she was supposed to be urgently running down the stairs. “I’m almost down at the ground floor,” she told him. “Then I’ll look for the emergency exit that was on the blueprint we were looking at in the plane, over.”

  “Copy that. How’s the leg?”

  She almost stopped in surprise. How did he know? “Did Number Nine tell you about my leg?” she asked.

  “Affirmative. He said you might need help if you were required to jump into the van, over.”

  Need help to jump—Helen felt like turning around and running back upstairs to find the man. “Please tell him that I rolled down the last ten flights of stairs,” she retorted, trying to keep the edge of anger from her voice. “I could probably roll myself into the van, thank you very much.”

  “He was just reporting in on your condition when Dr. Kirkland asked.”

  “Dr. K. could just have asked me,” Helen pointed out.

  “I’m doing good. Serum working like the eighth wonder. No pain.”

  And let out an involuntary gasp as she tried not to fall down the stairs.

  “What is it, Hell?” De Clerq demanded.

  “I don’t…know,” she managed. Her heart was beating erratically and she could barely think clearly. “Danger. I just sense danger.”

  “Is someone in the stairwell after you?”

  “No.” She gasped again, her breathing uneven. “No one. I can’t explain this, De Clerq.”

  She felt the hair on the back of her neck standing. Her “warning” sense had never been so alarming before. Goose pimples. Heart pumping as if she were in fear, but she wasn’t feeling scared at all.

  “You’re nearly there, Hell. Come on, you can do it. The exit isn’t too far,” De Clerq urged.

  Helen stumbled down, trying to concentrate while trying to control her breathing. One of her eyelids fluttered uncontrollably. What the hell was happening to her?

  Shit! Pause! Pause!

  The images running in his head were muddled, crisscrossed with lines. His eyes hurt.

  “Agent 51, what’s wrong? Your hands are covering your eyes and you’re moaning.”

  “Pain.” He had changed channels and had appeared on what was a stairwell. He had felt the electronic key and had zapped down that flight of stairs in his phantom body. Then he’d slammed into—something hard. But that was impossible. “I can’t see!”

  “What do you mean you can’t see? What are you doing, 51?” his monitor demanded. “We need you to focus. Are you with the key?”

  He could feel all the precious recorded images melting inside him. No!

  Pause! Pause!

  He had to fight through this, get back his sight, so he could get out of here. His head pounded. He could hear his monitor talking about him.

  “He’s shaking like a leaf. It’s the serum.”

  “Fuck! We’re so damn close, we can’t lose the key now! What do we do?”

  “Another shot will kill him. Agent 51, listen to my voice. Focus on my voice. Focus. Change channel. Change channel and come back. Do you hear me?”

  He heard the guiding voice in the chaotic darkness and focused on it like a man drowning. “Yes,” he said obediently.

  “Go to the closest exit and tell me where you are then come back.”

  He let his senses reach out to see which direction to go. Down. The vice around his head tightened and he screamed. He had to go down! But that thing was down there, too.

  Change channel. Change… He screamed again at the pain in his head and he felt himself tumbling like a drunk acrobat. Down, down, down, somersaulting through the ether.

  There was a glimpse…he could see something.

  “What do you see, Agent 51?”

  “The sign…says…” He tried to pronounce the German, panting the words out. “Westlicher Ausgang.”

  “Good. Now come back.”

  He gratefully did so, opening his eyes, and looking around at the interior of the van. His monitors weren’t paying attention to him anymore as one shouted to the driver. The pain was receding, but he was still shaking from whatever it was that had attacked him. He looked down. He’d wet his pants. For the first time ever, he was afraid.

  Helen forced herself to go even faster. She could do this. She had trained for this for two years and her body could take the punishment. All the while, her whole insides felt like a giant fist clenching tighter and tighter. It wasn’t painful—just tremendously uncomfortable—and it played havoc with her ability to think at all.

  She had no idea what was happening, just that something was crying out to her to move quickly, that something was wrong. Instinct, latent sixth sense, whatever. Get out! Get out!

  She saw the exit and breathed a sigh of relief. Her eye had stopped doing that weird fluttering, thank goodness. For a moment there, she’d thought she was having a seizure of some kind.

  She opened the door. At the same time, the awful squeezing sensation inside her stopped suddenly. She saw the CCC disguised vehicle she had arrived in heading down the alley toward her. The side doors opened and one of the operatives she had seen on the plane appeared.

  The squeal of tires to the right. She turned. A dark brown truck, looking like it was a UPS truck or something, had just turned the corner. It could be making a delivery, except that it was speeding straight at her.

  Everything went slow-motion in her head. She leapt into action, heading toward her agency’s vehicle, which was slowing down.

  A man from the speeding truck hung out of the passenger window. She gasped as she felt the shot hit her side. She fell on her knees and did a body roll, then got up immediately. The operative from her agency had jumped out and was running in her direction, shooting at the van behind her.

  “Hurry!” he yelled, his hand reaching out.

  Helen’s legs felt like lead and she couldn’t seem to move any faster. The slow motion was real, she realized suddenly. Her movements were slowing down, as if…she had been drugged.

  With the last of her energy, she flung herself toward her rescuer.

  “Can’t…move…fast,” she gasped out as she grabbed him.

  She wasn’t sure he heard her as he turned and calmly fired his weapon at the oncoming van, causing it to swerve, before turning to her. Then he half-dragged, half-carried her toward their waiting vehicle.

  They launched themselves through the open doorway, hitting the floor, and Helen’s partner immediately climbed on top of her.

  “Hey!” But her protest was muffled by the carpeting.

  Helen heard the squeal of wheels as their van gathered speed. More shots, some of which hit the side of the vehicle with metallic thuds. She realized that the man on her was protecting her. There was the slam of doors and her body was no longer trapped. She lifted her head.

  “Status, status, dammit!” De Clerq’s urgent voice piped up.

  Helen frowned. That didn’t come from the earpiece. She then realized that it must be coming from the van radio.


  “We’ve got her with us. A truck is right behind our vehicle. Better alert Number One and Number Nine at ground zero. I shot a GPS tag at it, so let’s hope it’s attached. The shots we exchanged are going to get Deutsche’s security operatives swarming around the scene,” the man beside her reported. He belly-crawled to the back of the van and peeked out of the back window. “Tell Number Nine I’m not in the building to help with retrieval. Question—shall we let that van follow us all the way or do we find a way to retrieve them for questioning, too? Over.”

  “Copy on Hell’s status. Copy on alert to Number One and Number Nine. Our men around the perimeter are reporting high activity. Keep driving while I communicate with the others, over.”

  “Copy.”

  “Who are they?” Hell asked.

  “No idea,” the man said.

  “Umm, I think I was shot with some kind of drug. I can’t move very well.”

  The man turned to her again. He checked her body, turning her on her back, lifting her arms and finally pulling something out of her side. “Tranq,” he muttered. He studied her. “You should be out like a light by now.”

  “Yeah, well, supersoldier-spy and all that,” she quipped, with a weak grin. “Like the Energizer Bunny, I just keep going and going.”

  “No pain?” he asked her.

  “Nope.” She closed her eyes. “But your mentioning that I should be out like a light is making me feel weaker.”

  “Of course,” he muttered. “Psychological.”

  “Dr. Kirkland’s going to have a hell of a time when I get back,” she said with a smile. “The serum’s a success, though.”

  “Hmm,” the man said. “They didn’t want to kill you. They fired real shots at me, but not you.”

  “Probably wanted to capture me,” she suggested, opening her eyes. “They know about the key, then.”

  He nodded. “I think it’s a good assumption that their plan was to get either you or the key, or both.”