Mr. Lange leaned over in his chair, as if he was going to tell her a secret, and whispered to her, “Are you awake, yet?”
Aislen dropped the med chart, sending it clattering down the hall. Her head was in a full spin now. A claw of ice shivered down her scalp then raked down her whole body like fingernails on a chalkboard. She felt like she would faint or vomit, or both at the same time.
Almost immediately, she felt a secure warm arm holding her up.
“Aislen, are you okay?” It was Troy. Rachel was standing right behind him.
“What happened, hon,” she asked. “Do you feel all right? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Aislen caught her breath and shook her head trying to clear it. She became very aware of the heat radiating off of Troy. He was holding her close against him. She could feel the taut ripples of muscle beneath his dress shirt and she thought she would faint for real this time but for a completely different reason. She pushed herself off him, regaining her composure.
“No, no. I am fine. I...I just slipped on something.”
Rachel looked down at Sigmund. “Mr. Lange, are you drooling again? Trying to trip up my nurses?”
Aislen looked back down at Sigmund. His eyes had veiled into milky clouds, and he was once again lost in numbers.
CHAPTER 7
Raze left Infinium directly after the meeting, hopped into his silver Audi R8, and within minutes was on the 280 northbound toward San Francisco.
The meeting with The 8 had gone better than he expected. He knew they wouldn’t be pleased with the circumstances, but in the end they gave him the permissions he needed to complete the project. He was a little surprised by the threatening stance Number 7 took at the end, with his scolding ultimatums.
Really? Although fear was a great control mechanism for the masses, Raze was the last person they should be trying to catch with that net. Attempting to intimidate him during this crucial time in the mission was the equivalent of shooting themselves in the head. Raze was their best. Most operatives never made it past Level X, remaining mere bloodhounds in this game of seek and destroy. Raze was a destroyer.
Undaunted, even a little amused, Raze merged with the 101 and made his way into the heart of the SoMa district toward South Beach. What used to be an industrial area populated by warehouses, docks, sweatshops, and flophouses harboring immigrants, seaman, hobos, and whores was now home to art galleries, museums, posh night clubs, restaurants and high-rent high-rises.
When Infinium acquired an enormous, dilapidated warehouse for a “loss” project, Raze took advantage of his exclusive status in their program. He negotiated a bargain price for a 4000 square foot section of it and converted it into his own living and workspace. The rest of the building remained rundown and undeveloped. This created the best of both worlds for Raze. He was able to live in the midst of the dense population yet still enjoy near-total solitude.
After living in the company compound under lock and key for six years, Raze had finally earned the privilege of living in his own digs. It had been convenient and extremely profitable, living completely on the company dime. Room, board, and every possible amenity had been paid for, allowing Raze to save and invest his entire income—which was not only substantial, but top secret, off the books, and tax-free. While the compound was far from being a prison, it wasn’t his own.
The constant rattle and hum of San Francisco suited him better. In the bustling metropolis, he could be packed like a sardine in the tin box of a Muni bus or a BART train, breathing into the face of a stranger and still feel non-existent. People here ignored each other, never making eye contact though they were literally pressed against each other. It was the perfect place to hide in plain sight. It was the complete opposite of his childhood home in Nebraska, where there was too much space and people not only looked at you, they scrutinized, found your flaws, then picked you apart, deeming you acceptable, or, as in Raze’s case, not.
Raze pulled the Audi into his 3-car garage, another luxury in the space-deprived city. At the back door, he placed his hand up to the Qi panel. It was a condition required by Infinium that Qi pads be located throughout the house. Because his residence was both a living and a workspace, access was limited. The Qis controlled admittance to and from each room. Housekeeping and concierge services were limited to the first level. The very rare, personal guest could be in the first level and his bedroom, but only if Raze was there with them.
When the Qi panel identified Raze, the locks disengaged and the door slid open. He stepped into the foyer and coded the system for alone status, which allotted him full, unchecked access. All the doors in the house simultaneously slid open, welcoming him home.
He stepped through the hallway and into a soaring living room, vaulted to the third floor. The concrete ceilings and walls were accented with exposed steel beams and original pipes and ducts. A pair of 24-foot, arched windows on the western wall framed the cityscape. Throughout the house, select walls were spray painted with the vibrant street art of the renowned graffiti gods of The Seventh Letter: Revok, Saber, Push, Reyes, and Retna. Custom stained concrete floors were garnished with bright geometric rugs. An iron spiral staircase connected the staggered, tri-level floor plan and a catwalk bridged his third floor bedroom with a private roof top patio that boasted a 360-degree view of the city and the Bay.
Raze took off his jacket and tie, throwing them on the living room couch. He ripped his shirt off, letting its buttons pop and scatter in six directions, then tossed it on the fireplace mantle. He kicked one shoe off by the recliner and the other toward a far corner of the room. He didn’t give a fuck. The maid service could clean it all up tomorrow—and mend his shirt. He liked making people clean up after him. He liked reminding them of their place in his world.
Shirtless and barefoot, he padded into the kitchen and opened up the twin Sub Z’s to find himself some righteous nourishment. The concierge service stocked it each morning, leaving it chock-full of pre-made gourmet meals and snacks. Raze grabbed a basket of acai berries, a handful of almonds, and the pitcher of purified, alkaline water. He had adopted a high-vibration diet during his training process, eating only fresh organic foods and completely eliminating alcohol, sugar, and caffeine in order to keep his physical vehicle balanced and help him better control his gift.
After years of living on a diet of Red Bull, Slim Jims, candy, and fast food, clean living had been a shock to his system and had caused severe withdrawals. But the payoff was worth it. He’d had a pretty decent body before, but now it was beyond extraordinary, redefining “ripped” and taking “shredded” into the stratosphere.
Although he was exceptional when it came to keeping inferior energies in check, Raze could feel a persistent nag of stress within his energy field and in his body’s cells. A thin thread of a current ran opposite to its normal flow through his system.
It had been a stressful morning. In his eight years as a control operative, never had a situation of this magnitude arisen. The question of how a young woman had manifested herself in Demesne and altered the course of events whined in his brain like a small child deprived of its candy. Raze was itching to pick it up and shake its knobby little head for the answers, but there were other priorities to be handled. He only had a couple of hours before he needed to track Blake down for the kill and that would take his total focus. It took a calm and collected mental, emotional, and physical state to do what he was about to do. He needed to release a little tension.
Raze contemplated his options. Anything that would relax him too much—a sauna, a Jacuzzi, a massage—was out. As was sex. Pussy now would deplete and scatter his energy way too much. He could treat himself to a blowjob later as a reward for the successful outcome of this assignment. What he really needed was a workout and some fresh air. Raze went into his bedroom, changed into some running clothes, coded the warehouse for away status, and left for a run along the Embarcadero.
It was perfect running weather, clear and crisp. Surrounded b
y water on three sides, the seasons in San Francisco tended to be backwards and the weather unpredictable. The summer brought in billows of damp fog and a chill, while fall and winter brought sunny skies and even warmth. He ran under the steel skeleton of the Bay Bridge, past the Ferry Building, through Maritime Park to Van Ness. Instead of allowing his endorphins to run unchecked into producing the euphoric most high runners craved, Raze directed them into burning out the pockets of tension and disquiet in his field. There was nothing better than running to clear his space.
After the alternating currents of agitation and distraction were neutralized, Raze turned around and methodically reacquainted himself with the facts of the Project.
The 8 had called him in on the assignment after they received intel that Scott Parrish had been accessing restricted information regarding Quantum Gaming Systems and Infinium Incorporated.
Level X Viewers began tracking Parrish’s every move and eavesdropping on every conversation after they found out that he had been sent a top secret video of a wartime incident that depicted a team of soldiers mowing down a group of obvious civilians.
To Parrish, an award-winning journalist, what was most disturbing about the incident was the borderline glee with which the troops acted.
They shouted encouragement to each other.
“Light ’em up!”
“100 points for that guy in the stripes!”
“Another 10 if you finish off the one crawling on the ground!”
Also unnerving was that one of them could be heard repeating, “Keep shooting” in a chillingly monotone drone, again and again until the street was paved with blood.
It was as though they were playing a video game, rather than participating in a real war, and Parrish couldn’t help but wonder if there was something more, buried underneath the obvious war crime. He began working on an article that exposed a military training program that used a video game to create killing machines out of its players.
When Parrish purchased Demesne to try to unlock this ulterior motive, Infinium Incorporated was more than concerned. Their Gaming Protocol was very successful aspect of their government contract and they did not want to jeopardize it with any unnecessary negative attention.
If Scott Parrish had been a writer for an organization that was part of Infinium’s media conglomerate, it would have been an easy fix; an editor could just squelch the article. But he wasn’t. He was a correspondent for an independent, online magazine renowned for its impartial and accurate editorials. It was imperative that any catastrophic exposure be prevented.
Raze was called and the Project was initiated.
Lucky for the company, Mr. Parrish just happened to have a member of Demesne’s target demographic living in his home.
∞
Raze came back from his run, let himself in through the Qi in the front door, stripped off his sweat-soaked clothes and threw them at the bottom of the stairs.
“Blake Mix,” he said out loud.
The voice recognition system of the house began playing music from a playlist specifically created by Raze to remind him of Blake Parrish. Music was a basic tool for activating the brain centers, especially the lobes that housed memory and recognition. Even the common maggot used music as a gateway. A song on the radio could throw someone in a good mood into the depths of despair over the nostalgia of a lost love, or send someone with a bad case of the Mondays into a joyful butt dance during his morning commute.
Linking music associations to targets helped Raze tune in to them. It put him on their scent and got him in the mood for the hunt. To help him track Blake, Raze used a little Disturbed, mixed with some Hatebreed and Drowning Pool to touch base with the boy’s angry side, with just enough bubblegum boyband to hark back to his more innocent days of just a few months ago, when Raze and Blake met for the first time.
Raze grabbed some more water, another snack from the fridge, and took the stairs two at a time to the third floor, master bedroom suite.
“Tonic,” Raze commanded to the shower.
The shower responded by turning on all 18 heads and heating the water up to a lukewarm temperature. Raze stepped inside, allowing the shower to wash off the lather of his run, then relaxed as it ran through a programmed sequence that stimulated the six zones of his body. He drowned himself in the dropped D power chords and raw screams of Billy Talent and conjured up Blake in his mind.
He had his first peek of the lad right after receiving the assignment. Blake was just growing out of cute little boy and into awkward pre-teen: gangly, awkward, walking around with a constant boner, and a voice that broke somewhere in the middle of every sentence. He was ripe for the picking—in the sweet spot of pulling away from his parental influences without any established attachments to his peers, yet. The fragile seeds of angst and rebellion were just beginning to germinate, ready for Raze to cultivate.
It didn’t take any influence at all on Raze’s part to get Blake to pick up the game controls. Demesne was the most popular MMORPG on the market. Everyone in Blake’s age group was either playing it or talking about it. Just having it present in the house was enough to ensure Blake would get a hold of it.
Demesne itself handled a majority of the hard work. The game had just the right mix of attributes for creating addiction, especially in one who had a personality type such as Blake, a twelve-year-old with a razor-sharp intellect, accompanied by social interaction skills that left him a bit of an outcast. Loneliness and isolation had found inviting nooks and crannies to hide within the Blake’s subconscious. Raze understood this well. Viewing Blake was like gazing into a looking glass that reflected Raze’s own childhood. But time and society had not yet violated Blake to the point of hardening him or inspiring him to build up a wicked offense. That was Raze’s job.
In the unsupervised hours after school, before the parental authorities got home from the office, Demesne worked her magic, engaging Blake in role-play that allowed him to behave completely different from his normal self. Where Blake was completely powerless in his day-to-day life, Demesne gave him complete control of everything: weapons, equipment, armies, and people. Intense scenarios stimulated his adrenals and endorphins flooded his brain, sending him into euphoria.
But what snagged Blake, hook, line and sinker, was Raze himself. Raze befriended Blake in the game immediately. He took the little n00b under his wing, showed him the ropes, gave him inside tips, and kept him from getting pwned—leetspeak for being owned or totally dominated in the game by other players. Raze established the camaraderie that quickly brought all of Blake’s psychological defenses down.
When Blake wasn’t in the game, he crashed hard, a hangover of depression and irritability that could only be alleviated by playing. Blake literally itched and trembled through the insufferably long weekends when his parents were home.
When his family became concerned about the changes in Blake’s behavior and realized he had been playing the game, Scott Parrish changed all the passwords. And Raze helped Blake hack back in.
When his father locked the control visors in the gun safe, Raze just happened to have a pair of beta visors, that no one else in the world owned, which he sent to Blake surreptitiously.
Using the visor interface, Raze was able to shift Blake’s brainwave patterns, opening the portal in his mind that took him into Raze’s 4th dimensional space. Once there, Raze could fully influence Blake’s defenseless subconscious mind. Within two months, Raze had manipulated, tweaked and fine-tuned his protégé, slowly and methodically turning an innocent boy into an on-demand killing machine. A machine programmed to kill his own father.
The shower completed the relax sequence, chilling the water to a brisk invigorate mode. Raze was both relaxed and completely alert.
“Off,” he said, stepping out of the shower and toweling himself dry. He went into his closet to get dressed. While it was theoretically possible to work naked—no one was going to be able to see him—Raze liked to wear attire that made him feel professio
nal. He selected a pair of black slacks and a form-fitting black turtleneck from his closet. He dressed, ran some gel through his jet-black hair and slapped a little of his favorite cologne on. He was ready.
Raze stood before the full-length mirror at the far wall of his room. A Qi panel inside the mirror scanned his energy field, then slid open, revealing a set of stairs that led down to the hidden second level of the warehouse. He stepped through the opening, the wall closed behind him, and he descended the staircase into the sterile environment of The Womb.
Raze opted for a remote influencing operation rather than dream seeding. It was actually easier to manipulate thoughts and influence people while they were still awake. Seeding took several astral visits to fully implant an idea. During sleep, Raze could seed an idea in a subject’s mind but then could only wait, and hope, the concept germinated enough before the subject woke up so that they would follow through with the implanted idea.
There were too many variables in seeding. If the subject was under the influence of alcohol or medication, or if they were not evolved enough to pull dream information up through the wavelengths into their subconscious mind, the seed could go latent or perish. Blake would surely be medicated, so Raze wasn’t going to waste his time trying to dream seed suicidal thoughts.
Remote influencing could work in one visit. Raze could turn the right screws that would make Blake believe that Raze’s thoughts were his own and get him to complete the assigned task.
Raze sat down in the recliner. He checked his energy on the monitor, happy to see that the run and shower had brought his brainwaves down to Alpha 14.
“Alpha 8.”
The stereo faded the Blake Mix into a soft, white noise. Raze leaned back into the chair, let his body release its weight, allowed gravity to pull the idea of his body into the Earth. He began taking slow, deep breaths and placed his fingers in a sequence of hand mudras with each breath cycle to coordinate and influence the flow of energy through his physical and astral body.
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