Changeling

by David Wood

  She looked forward again, refusing to answer.

  Professor shook his head and stared out the windshield at the deeply rutted road. From what he could tell, it ran north-south, leaving him with a fifty-fifty chance of getting it right on the first try. He could always backtrack if he hit a dead-end, but such a mistake might cost valuable time, or possibly exhaust his fuel supply, leaving him stranded. The ruddy glow of the distant fire was brightest to the north. Depending on how the road meandered, it might take them right into the heart of the blaze.

  “Two roads diverged in a wood,” he muttered. “So I flipped a coin.”

  He cranked the wheel to the right, turning the SUV away from the fire, but Eve stopped him. “Go the other way.”

  He corrected immediately, veering to the left and, as soon as the wheels were all pointing forward, shifted the four-wheel drive back into high-range. “Why the change of heart?”

  “Because I don’t know how far that road goes, but I do know that if you run out of gas out in the middle of nowhere, I’m screwed. Since you dislocated my knee, I won’t be walking out, and I doubt you’ll be able to carry me very far. It’s pretty simple math, really. Oh, and I don’t think that’s how the poem goes.”

  “Poem?”

  “Robert Frost. The Road Not Taken. ‘Two roads diverged in a wood and I, I took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.’”

  “Ah. I didn’t think you were familiar with Frost.”

  “You’re thinking of Jeanne Carrera.”

  He looked at her again, wondering about the woman under the mask. “Is it worth it?”

  “What?”

  “Whatever it is you get from playing this game. Wearing a mask all the time. Living other people’s lives instead of your own.”

  She turned away and looked straight ahead. “You don’t know anything about me.”

  He shrugged and did the same, pushing the SUV as fast as conditions would permit. The headlight beams picked up the smoke in the air, but after about two miles, the road began to veer away from the fire. Not long after that, the road came to a T-junction with a paved highway.

  “Left,” Eve said without looking.

  He followed this guidance, but remained wary. Her pragmatic explanation for helping him earlier did not carry as much weight now that they had reached a road more traveled. “So where are we anyway? New Zealand?”

  She gave a short, humorless laugh. “I figured you would have worked that out already.”

  “I’m in the ballpark, right?”

  “Tasmania.”

  “Ah, of course.” The island of Tasmania, located a hundred and fifty miles off the south-eastern tip of Australia, shared the same latitude as parts of New Zealand, but was about eight hundred miles further west. “Well that’s a little embarrassing.”

  Tasmania was fairly large for an island, about the same size as Ireland, but with only one-eighth the population, half of which was concentrated in the capital city of Hobart, with the rest mostly occupying settlements on the coast. Nearly half of the island had been set aside for parks or nature preserves, most of which were not easily accessible by vehicle, making it the perfect place to hide from the rest of the world.

  “I take it that wasn’t your permanent headquarters.”

  “We don’t have ‘headquarters.’ I told you. We are everywhere.”

  “Well, it won’t be too hard to root you out.” He reached over and tugged the dangling flap of latex, revealing a little more of her true face.

  She looked away again, staring absently out the side window. “Not everyone wears a mask.”

  That thought was chilling. If the Changelings had truly been infiltrating the halls of power for several generations, then there would be no need for them to replace world leaders. They could simply leverage their preferred candidates into the limelight, and let democracy take care of the rest.

  “I don’t believe you,” he lied. “But it doesn’t matter. You’re afraid. Afraid that Jade will find something that will utterly destroy you, and that tells me that you’re a lot weaker than you want me to believe.”

  She continued giving him the silent treatment, which seemed proof enough that he was right. I have to contact Jade, he thought. Let her know that she’s on the right track. But how?

  How indeed, if even the omniscient Changelings could not find her?

  A light appeared further down the road, the headlights of an approaching car, the first he had seen. Probably someone coming to investigate the fire, he thought. But what if it’s not? What if it’s more Changelings coming to see why Eve was taking so long?

  There was something strange about the lights too, but with them shining directly in his eyes, he couldn’t quite put his finger on what was bothering him. When the lights were only about a hundred yards away, Eve broke her silence, speaking in a calm detached manner. “They drive on the left here.”

  Professor hauled the steering wheel to the side, veering into the left lane, even as the sound of the oncoming car’s horn reached his ears. The SUV shuddered as he fought to regain control, and for a moment, he thought it might go tumbling down the highway. Instead, the vehicle spun around sideways, the rear end clipping a white guard post, and then rebounded away, spinning across both lanes, just missing the passing car, and hit another guard post on the right side of the road.

  Something exploded in Professor’s face, showering him with a spray of hot vapor and debris, and then his face slammed into the airbag that had deployed from the center of the steering wheel. The collision combined with the unexpected punch from the safety system left him momentarily dazed, but even before his wits returned, he started groping for the door handle. It took him a few seconds to realize that the door was already open, sprung out of its frame by the crash, and that the only thing holding him a prisoner of the wrecked SUV was his seat belt.

  As he wrestled with the buckle, a bright red glow from outside the vehicle caught his attention. It was the brake lights of the car he had narrowly missed. The back-up lights came on, and the car began rolling backwards down the road.

  He breathed a curse and then looked over to see how Eve had fared. To his dismay, the passenger’s seat was empty. “Damn it!” He squirmed out of the seat belt and pitched forward onto the pavement, feeling acutely every bruise sustained in the crash and in his earlier struggle with Eve. Nevertheless, he got his feet under him and sprinted around to the other side of the vehicle.

  There was no sign of Eve.

  He searched the woods, certain that he would see her limping or crawling away. With her injured knee, she could not possibly have gotten very far… Unless she wasn’t heading for the woods.

  He ducked down behind the end of the SUV and sneaked a look at the car which had come to a full stop about thirty yards away. The doors opened and four figures—all men, judging by their physique—emerged.

  “Help me!” The shriek, a woman’s voice liberally accented with the local brogue, was accompanied by a flurry of movement near the crumpled front end of the wrecked vehicle. A woman shambled into the open, waving her arms. “He tried to kill me! Help!”

  It was Eve, and yet it was not her, or rather not the woman he had captured in the Changeling camp. Her mask was gone, revealing smooth white skin and a cascade of blonde hair. She had also shed her commando attire, stripping down to her underwear.

  “Damn it!” The men in the car evidently weren’t Changelings, just Good Samaritans, but she would turn them against him all the same.

  “Help!” she cried again, falling into the arms of the closest man. “Save me!”

  While the one man was occupied with comforting the damsel-in-distress, the other three began advancing. Professor pulled back into the shadows. He would never be able to convince the men that she was not the victim she purported to be. He did not think he could outrun them, which left only one option. He would have to fight his way out of this.

  He dug the syringes from his pocket. The fast-acti
ng drug might be enough to even the odds, but he would have to let the men get very close in order to inject them. He backed away from the SUV, staying in a low fighting stance, and waited for Eve’s hapless saviors to close to within striking distance. As the first man stepped into view, Professor realized he had made a grievous miscalculation. The men were armed with pistols, all of which were trained on him.

  He raised his hands. “Guys, it’s not what you think.”

  The plea sounded utterly ridiculous. These men were not going to take his word over that of a beautiful, half-naked blonde with bruises all over her body, and he doubted very much that Eve would implore them to simply take him prisoner until the police arrived.

  “You’re American?” one of the men asked, seemingly apropos of nothing. There was something odd about his manner of speech. He did not sound like an Aussie. The man who had raised the question did not wait for an answer, but instead holstered his gun and took out his phone. He held it up as if to take Professor’s picture then turned to the others. “It’s him!”

  Professor watched incredulously as the other men put their guns away and rushed forward, repeating the message in a low murmur.

  It’s him.

  What the hell?

  “We were sent to find you,” explained the first man.

  “What are you doing?” Eve screamed. “Shoot him!”

  The man looked back to where his comrade was still hugging the woman protectively. “Hold her. Do not let her escape.”

  Professor ignored Eve’s cries and continued to regard the other man warily. “Sent by whom?”

  “Mr. Atash Shah.”

  Professor now recognized the odd lilt to the man’s voice. Indian, or more likely, Pakistani. His swarthy features, along with a long but well-groomed beard, suggested the latter.

  He also recognized the name. Shah. The founder of the Crescent Defense League. The man who had put Jade on his hit list. Wonderful, he thought, miserably. And I didn’t think things could get worse.

  “And Dr. Jade Ihara,” the man continued.

  “Jade?” He felt a glimmer of hope, but then just as quickly grew wary again. It’s another trick. Eve’s dire pronouncement still rang in his ears. There is not a soul on this earth you can trust.

  Except Shah had no reason to work with the Changelings, much less with Jade. And how would Jade even know to approach Shah, someone who was actively targeting her? If this was another Changeling ploy, it was positively Byzantine.

  “Jade sent you?” he repeated. “I want to talk to her.”

  The man looked at his phone again. “The reception is a bit spotty out here, but I’ll try.”

  A moment later, he brought it to his ear and began speaking in English. “It’s Ahmad. We found him…Yes…Yes… He wants to speak to Dr. Ihara.” His face broke into a broad grin as he held the phone out.

  Professor regarded the mobile device cautiously—

  Not a soul on this earth you can trust.

  —then accepted it and held it to his ear. “Jade?”

  “Prof?”

  The sound of her voice, the palpable concern and relief in her tone, brought tears to his eyes, yet he could not forget that Eve had perfectly mimicked Jade’s voice. “How do I—?”

  “Know it’s really you?” she finished the question before he could get the words out. She thought for a few seconds, then said: “Where did you get that ridiculous hat?”

  “I don’t own a ‘ridiculous hat,’” he said quickly. “But I do have a very dashing and stylish fedora that I picked up in Costa Rica last year. My turn.” He searched his memory for some trivial bit of shared information that no Changeling would ever guess at. Finally, he said. “Jade. I love you.”

  There was a long silence at the other end. “Knock it off, Professor. And get your ass back here. I need you.”

  It’s really her.

  “Jade, I…” A short triple-beep signaled the termination of the call. He sighed and finished the sentence. “I don’t know where you are.”

  PART THREE- CIRCLES

  TWENTY-THREE

  Edwards Air Force Base, California USA

  The first thing Jade did when Professor stepped off the loading ramp of the United States Air Force C-130 Globemaster cargo plane was run up to him and tug his cheek to make sure that it was really him and not someone wearing a mask.

  The second thing she did was kiss him.

  He did not resist. Jade was pretty sure that he was enjoying the display of affection, but she also knew he would never let her live it down, so as she pulled away she said, “Just needed to do that for future reference.”

  “I missed you, too,” he said. “Future reference?”

  “There are some things a Changeling can’t duplicate.”

  “Eww. Don’t tell me you kissed… You know what, I don’t want to know.” He threw his arms around her and hugged her. “God, what a nightmare that was.”

  “You can tell me about it on the way.” She took a step back and gestured to the man standing a few steps behind her. “Professor, meet Atash Shah.”

  Professor regarded Shah suspiciously then extended his hand. Shah accepted the hand clasp, then went rigid, the blood draining from his face, as Professor squeezed.

  “I appreciate what you did for Jade,” Professor said in a low voice, “but let me be clear. I think you are a terrorist—”

  Jade put a hand on Professor’s chest and gave him a hard shove. “Knock it off. You would probably be dead if it wasn’t for him and his terrorists, so give it a rest.”

  Shah however seemed oddly pleased by Professor’s display. “That’s okay. I’m rather used to that sort of ignorant prejudice.”

  “Ignorant?” There was strange gleam in Professor’s eyes. “I guess I have more experience with your so-called ‘religion of peace’ than you realize. Not as much as the friends I’ve buried, mind you—”

  “Hey!” Jade said sharply. “Enough!”

  Professor offered a tight smile then let go of Shah’s hand. “Looking forward to working with you.”

  “So much for the happy reunion,” Jade growled under her breath. “I hope you got that out of your system. We’ve got work to do.”

  “Something I have to take care of first.” He looked past her, settling his gaze on a convoy of black vans rolling toward the flight line.

  Jade’s forehead drew into a crease. “You told someone you were coming here?”

  Professor’s travel arrangements—hers and Shah’s too—had been shrouded in secrecy. With no way of knowing who could be trusted, it had been necessary to create several different itineraries and modes of travel, with multiple decoy destinations, and even then, there was no way of knowing if they had covered all their bases.

  “Tam sent them. Of course I told her. Who do you think set everything up?”

  “Well what are they doing here?”

  “I brought Tam a souvenir.” He waved to someone in the interior of the aircraft, and two people emerged, moving slowly down the metal deck. One was a tall, muscly guy, wearing jeans, a Harley Davidson T-shirt and cowboy boots. Jade thought the second person might be a woman, but it was hard to tell for certain since she wore a shapeless orange prison jumpsuit with a high-collared bullet-proof vest and a burlap sack over her head.

  “Whoa. You caught a live one?” Although they had spoken several times over the phone to coordinate this rendezvous, there had not been time to catch up on the details of their respective misadventures. Jade knew only that Professor had been imprisoned by the Changelings and had eventually escaped on his own.

  “The big guy there is Billy Sievers, one of Tam’s new hires. He rode with me from Sydney. I guess as the low man on the totem pole, he got stuck with escort duty.”

  “I do have some experience with it,” Sievers said in a deep Texas drawl.

  “Used to work for an escort service, yeah?” Jade asked with a mischievous smile.

  Seivers winked. “Wouldn’t you like to know?” />
  Jade turned her grin on Professor. “He’s cute. Let’s keep him.”

  “Sorry, ma’am. I’ve already got a date.” Sievers gestured to the prisoner. “Not sure where I’m takin’ her yet, but it’s bound to be a good time. For one of us anyway.”

  There was a hint of menace in his tone, and Jade decided that maybe Sievers wasn’t so cute after all.

  The vans rolled up close to the cargo doors, forming a tight horseshoe with no gaps through which an observer might be able to see what was happening inside. Each of the vehicles opened, disgorging a contingent of men in army uniforms—the combat variety, replete with body armor, helmets, and assault rifles. They took up defensive positions all around the inner perimeter, as if anticipating an immediate attack.

  Sievers turned to the prisoner. “Our ride’s here, honey.”

  The woman did not respond to the sound of his voice but at a none-too-gentle nudge from Seivers, she began walking straight ahead. He guided her toward the second van in the line and then helped her step up into the vehicle. When she was back inside, he raised a hand to his forehead as if tipping the brim of an imaginary hat to Jade. “See you round, darlin’.”

  Jade smiled, but muttered under her breath. “Not if I see you first.”

  The soldiers broke formation and piled back into the vans. When they were gone, Jade gestured to the waiting rental car that would bear the three of them away. Once inside, with Jade behind the wheel, Professor riding shotgun and an eerily quiet Shah in the back seat, she asked, “Where will they take her?”

  “A black site. A secret detention facility for enemies of the state too dangerous to be put into the criminal justice system.”

  “Isn’t that illegal? Especially on American soil.”

  “She’s one of them,” Professor said. “A Changeling. Leaving aside the fact that she deserves anything we could do to her, she’s part of a conspiracy that runs so deep, there’s no way of knowing who in our government is already compromised. Tam is going to play this very close to the vest. It’s the only way to root out the Changeling infiltrators.”