Sleeper Agenda

by Thomas E. Sniegoski

  He’d left his schoolbooks on the table, and with one hand holding the ice against his face, he hefted the books with the other and headed through the dining room to the stairs, hoping to get to his room before Grandma woke up from her nap.

  But again luck was against him. He tripped on the top step, sprawling to the landing, his books tumbling across the hardwood floor, coming to a stop just in front of Grandma’s door.

  He lay there perfectly still in the sudden, deafening silence, his heartbeat hammering, hoping that she hadn’t heard or, better yet, that she had died in her sleep.

  “Brandon, is that you making all that racket out there?” cried a shrill voice from the bedroom. “Come in here, boy.”

  And as ten-year-old Brandon dragged himself up from the floor of the upstairs hall, he wished himself anywhere other than on his way to see his grandmother.

  Even if meant being back on the wooded path on a collision course with Tyler Garrett’s fist.

  “Dammit,” Kavanagh growled, snapping back from yet another bizarre journey to the past.

  It was happening more and more frequently these days, and for a moment he seriously considered talking with one of the staff physicians, but then he thought better of it. A Kavanagh don’t show no weakness, he heard Grandma’s ragged voice proclaim, and he shuddered.

  “Shut your mouth, you miserable old bat,” he growled, stepping out from behind his desk and going to the tiny washroom in his office.

  He turned on the cold water in the sink and doused his face liberally, trying to wash away the spiderweb stickiness of the memories. Face dripping, he stared at his reflection in the mirror, briefly seeing himself at age ten—face spattered with blood not his own.

  Kavanagh quickly looked away, taking in deep breaths of the stale, recycled air. He wiped his face with a towel and went back to his desk. There were more important things to think about now, things that dealt with the present and his future.

  Not the past.

  The ringing of his portable phone startled him briefly, but then he glanced at his wristwatch and smiled. “Right on time,” he murmured as he picked up the phone from his desk. “Yes?” he questioned, and listened to the response from the familiar voice on the other end.

  “Well, hello there, Tyler,” he purred into the phone, sitting down on the edge of his desk.

  A strange sense of euphoria flowed through him. He would show them; he would show them never to back a Kavanagh into a corner.

  Tyger! Tyger! Burning bright, in the forests of the night; what immortal hand or eye could frame thy fearful symmetry?

  Tom came awake, the words of William Blake’s poetry spoken by Victoria Lovett echoing in his mind. He knew where he was immediately and climbed to his feet, a surge of panic shooting through him like currents of electricity.

  He was in the foyer of the old mansion.

  “Hello?” he called out, listening for a reply, but all he heard was the haunting sound of the wind blowing outside the old structure.

  He walked slowly into the large living room. He remembered the first time he had been here, the first meeting with his doppelgänger.

  “Are you in here?” he asked the darkened room.

  But he knew he was alone; he could feel it. Tyler Garrett wasn’t here or anywhere else in the house, so then where…?

  The realization struck him like a physical blow. It was what he had feared most since learning of his condition—of his dual personality—and Tom felt his legs go weak as he made his way to one of the sheet-covered sofas.

  His mind was racing. If I’m in here, that means Tyler is out there. How can this have happened? And then it came back to him: the poem. And he remembered the strange sensation, very much like a narcoleptic attack, as his mother recited the words.

  “That bitch!” Tom snapped, launching himself from the sofa and kicking the nearby coffee table, flipping it to its side. “How could I have been so stupid!”

  Outside the wind wailed fitfully, and he stopped, focusing on the sound of the elements, managing to pull back on his rage. The wind seemed to calm. Then he remembered something Tyler had said to him on his first visit—something about this being his place; that it responded to his feelings.

  “If it’s your place,” Tom said aloud, looking around the room as the germ of an idea formulated in his head, “and you’re me—then it must be my place as well.”

  He returned to the foyer, stopping near the large winding staircase that led up to the second level. “And this should help me how?” he asked aloud, feeling his frustration rise again.

  But he couldn’t help it. Just the idea of his alternate self, out there in the real world, inside the Pandora facility, was so terribly disturbing; there was still so much he didn’t know about the violent personality that shared his mind. And then he remembered Madison.

  “Oh God, oh God,” he repeated, pacing around the foyer.

  He thought about leaving the mansion, but he had no idea what was outside. For all he knew, it could be some bottomless void that would suck him even deeper into his subconscious.

  “Dammit!” he cursed. “I’m the freakin’ dominant personality!”

  With a renewed determination, he returned to the spot where he had awakened and dropped to the tiled floor. He made himself comfortable and closed his eyes. Maybe—just maybe—he could wrest control away from Tyler. Using concentration techniques that he’d learned from various doctors to help his narcolepsy, Tom tried to escape the mansion.

  He imagined himself deep below the ocean, so far down that the sunlight couldn’t even reach him. He was sitting on the sandy bottom, feeling the pressure of the sea all around him, and then he was rising, ever so slowly. The darkness around him started to lighten, the rays of the sun barely permeating the softening gloom as he floated upward. Tom was completely in control, feeling himself emerging from the various layers of unconsciousness that had entwined him.

  And still he climbed, turning his face toward the brightening light. Eagerly he kicked toward it—toward consciousness—but suddenly he sensed something in the darkness around him. Below him. He was no longer alone in the lightening ocean of black.

  Tom looked down past his feet, at the darkness from which he had emerged and saw that something was following. He suppressed a stab of panic, kicking harder, attempting to ascend faster. The light from above grew brighter, beckoning to him, but the ocean of black had grown suddenly turbulent.

  He looked down again to see a shape blacker than the darkness from which it had originated. It was huge—a gigantic beast created to prowl the ocean of his subconscious.

  Tom looked into its white, empty eyes, sensing Tyler’s involvement.

  The shadow beast surged up, its enormous maw opening voraciously wider.

  And still Tom tried reaching for the light, striving to awaken. And he was almost there—

  But he was taken from beneath, the monstrosity of shadow swallowing him whole in one all-enveloping gulp before beginning its descent back to the inky darkness.

  Back to oblivion.

  Chapter 11

  THE ASSASSIN MOVED catlike down the corridor, his entire body thrumming with the excitement of being in control again. It felt good to be back, his body whole and not wasting away in some godforsaken dream world.

  And then the world tipped suddenly to one side.

  “Whoa,” Tyler said, losing his balance slightly, bumping up against the wall of the corridor as he made his way to Pandora’s information archives. “Not so fast, Tommy,” he whispered, allowing the defense mechanisms he’d set up in his mind to kick in.

  Tyler had always been planning for a future when he was in control; and being the stickler for detail that he was, he’d planned in advance how to keep his alternate personality locked away where it belonged. The assassin chuckled as the vertigo subsided. Now that he was entirely in the driver’s seat, nothing was going to stop him.

  Besides, he had a job to do.

  As soon as he’d g
ained control, he’d used Agent Mayer’s cell phone to dial a number he’d suddenly remembered. It had turned out to be his boss. At first Tyler had felt a certain amount of resentment toward Brandon Kavanagh, believing that he had been abandoned—cast aside as damaged goods—once the problems with the troublesome Tom Lovett had arisen.

  But now he saw that it had all been part of a much bigger plan. He was inside the nerve center of the Pandora Group, right where Kavanagh wanted him to be.

  No longer bothered by Tom’s attempts to regain control, Tyler continued down the corridor to the archives. He thought about the scene in the interrogation room and almost laughed out loud as he remembered Tremain’s concern for his other half. What happened, Tom? he had asked, and Tyler had had to bite the inside of his face not to tell him. God, it was hard not to let loose, to eliminate everybody in the room in a matter of seconds as a way of showing that he was back in charge. But he had held himself in check.

  Tyler had had no idea that his handler held the key to releasing him from the prison of Tom’s mind. A tiger burning in the night and all. Who would have guessed it’d be that simple?

  He had been so caught up in his thoughts that he didn’t even notice the two Pandora agents approaching him until it was too late. They stopped him, one asking where his escort was while the other unclipped a walkie-talkie from the lapel of his jacket and prepared to call in Tyler’s infraction.

  Tyler couldn’t allow that.

  He sprang into the air and spun around, the heel of his foot connecting with the chin of the agent who was attempting to reach security. There was a gratifying crack as the man’s jaw broke, and he fell to the ground hard.

  The other guy had actually managed to draw his gun. He was fast, but Tyler was faster.

  The assassin lashed out, bringing his closed fist down on the man’s wrist with a sledgehammer-like blow. Again Tyler felt the satisfying sensation of breaking bone as he watched the weapon tumble from the agent’s grasp. Then he followed with a blow to the agent’s temple, and the man was down before his firearm hit the ground.

  Tyler smiled as he surveyed his work. It’s good to be back, he thought, sprinting down the hallway to the archives. It was only a matter of time before the two agents were discovered. He would have to gather his information quickly and get out before the entire facility was locked down.

  He removed Agent Mayer’s key from his pocket as he approached the security door, slipped it into the electronic lock, and punched in the entry code that Tom—he—had seen the agent use any number of times. The doors opened with a soft hiss and a wave of cool air. The computer room was kept at fifty-five degrees to keep the large CPU, which contained information on every form of technology investigated by Pandora, from overheating. Tyler approached one of the computer stations and sat down in front of the terminal to begin his information extraction. He had to enter Mayer’s security code again. Her security clearance wasn’t high enough to grant him access to the files he wanted, but it didn’t take him long to find a security code that was accepted, as a vision of Tremain pecking at the keyboard just the other day swam in his mind’s eye. Thanks again, Tom.

  “Thatta girl,” Tyler said with a coaxing smile as the computer responded, allowing him access to a file called simply Crypt. He moved the cursor through the file, searching for a specific name—a Russian name.

  The name of a village in Siberia.

  “Bingo,” he said, opening the document, which contained all the information Tyler needed about the item named for that Siberian village. “Ain’t you the prettiest thing.” He chuckled with satisfaction, committing the contents to memory. “And just a road trip away.”

  The sudden sound of an alarm put an end to his good humor. Quickly he shut down the file and then entered a code of his own, a virus. This should keep ‘em busy for a while, he thought as he shut down the computer and moved to the door.

  He slipped carefully into the hallway, glancing back the way he had come to find the two agents still unconscious on the floor. They must have found Mayer, he thought as he turned and headed for the fire stairs at the end of the corridor. No matter—he still had plenty of time to get away.

  Victoria Lovett had remained unusually silent since her meeting with the young man she called her son.

  Hands bound behind her back as a precaution, they were escorting her to a new holding cell in one of the lower levels of the building. She appeared lost in thought, and Tremain had to wonder what exactly was going through her mind.

  The way the boy had reacted, the obvious hurt burning in his gaze. How could anyone live with themselves after being responsible for so much pain? And then the image of his ex-wife standing in the doorway of their bedroom as he packed his suitcase for yet another Pandora operation suddenly filled his mind, the ghostly soft sound of her voice suggesting that it would be best he not return.

  I guess it’s something you just learn to live with.

  He shook himself from his reverie and stepped up beside Victoria, intending to take advantage of her weakness. “You do realize,” he said, “that if you remain cooperative, future visits with Tom could—”

  Tremain didn’t have the chance to finish, for the air was suddenly filled with the sounds of an alarm and an unpleasant, recorded message droning on about a security breach.

  He looked at Victoria and caught something in her gaze that told him she knew exactly what was going on.

  “What did you do?” he snarled, grabbing hold of her arm and pulling her closer. “What did you do to him?”

  The alarms continued their nearly deafening peal as Tyler effortlessly completed climbing the twentieth flight and stopped at a heavy metal door, cursing himself for being a fool.

  “What’s wrong with you, boy?” he hissed, hand on the cold metal of the doorknob. “You’ve still got a chance. Slip out through one of the lower levels, help yourself to a fine vehicle, and you’re gone. What the hell are you doing?”

  Tyler couldn’t explain why, but the idea of escaping without Madison Fitzgerald was like leaving a designated target alive after an assassination mission. It was that bad.

  It’s all his fault, Tyler realized, his temper flaring. Since their two personalities had started to merge, certain aspects of Tom’s persona had leaked into his own psyche, just as surely as aspects of his own had leaked into Tom’s. But now Tom was tucked away where he couldn’t do himself or anybody else any harm.

  At least that’s what Tyler wanted to believe.

  Somehow he had picked up Tom’s feelings for the girl, and there wasn’t anything he could do to shake them. The last thing he needed on this mission was a tagalong, but try as he might, he couldn’t wrap his twisted brain around the idea of leaving Madison behind.

  For some strange reason, he needed her.

  The hell with it; he was running out of time. He would obey his instincts—no matter how stupid they seemed at the moment. He’d just get the girl and leave the facility as quickly as possible. There was still so much he had to do.

  He pulled open the door and moved with purpose down the hallway toward Madison’s room.

  Tyler smiled. The usual guard posted outside the girl’s room was nowhere to be seen. Excellent, he thought, maybe this won’t be so bad after all.

  And then two agents stepped out of Madison’s room. One was Agent Abernathy; the other Tyler didn’t recognize. He froze. They hadn’t noticed him, but it was only a matter of seconds before they did.

  Just enough time.

  Keeping his pulse rate steady, he advanced down the hallway, counting the seconds until they saw him.

  Abernathy pulled the door closed and was about to say something to his companion when he finally noticed the teen heading toward them. “Freeze, Lovett!” he screamed, drawing his weapon from his shoulder holster.

  The other agent reacted as well, jumping back and pulling his own gun. Tyler charged forward. And when they started to fire, he had to wonder if they had been authorized to use lethal force
—or if this was something personal.

  He drew the weapon he’d taken from Agent Mayer, ready to shoot them both—a head shot for the one he didn’t know. He thought he’d be merciful, but Abernathy deserved a whole lot of pain. Tyler had focused down the barrel of the pistol, finger tensing on the trigger, preparing to make his first kill in quite some time, when he realized he couldn’t do it.

  He couldn’t kill.

  “Dammit,” he spat angrily. It looked like he was going to have to take them down by hand.

  He dropped to the ground in a roll and sprang up again between the two agents. Now in danger of hitting each other, they were forced to hold their fire. Still clutching his own gun, Tyler thrust the barrel of the weapon into the unknown agent’s throat, the metal jabbing the man’s Adam’s apple, causing him to stumble back, choking for breath. Abernathy managed to get off a single shot before Tyler was upon him.

  “I know how embarrassing it must’ve been for you to get your ass kicked by a teenager,” Tyler said, moving in close.

  Abernathy was a fighter; he just wasn’t all that good. Tyler was tempted to toy with him for a while, but time was growing too short for fun and games. Instead, he drove his forehead into the agent’s chin, pushing him back against the wall. Abernathy was stunned but still tried to raise his weapon. Tyler grabbed his wrist, applying just the right amount of pressure to make him drop the gun and cry out. It was really becoming an old habit between the two of them—Tyler almost wished Abernathy would wise up to the trick just to keep things from getting boring.

  “How you gonna explain it this time?” he asked with a grin, wanting to deliver a killing blow but knocking the man senseless with a succession of three blows to the face.

  Abernathy slid down the wall, completely unconscious.