Tobin holstered his gun.
"Unless you are attempting to negotiate your surrender, I don't see that we have much to discuss."
The Zealot threw back his hood.
Dru was a little disappointed by the gaunt, unremarkable man beneath it, now that she could finally see him up close. Approximately forty years of age, with short blond hair, cropped on the sides and slightly longer in the center, only noticeable because of the difference in the way light played across it. His eyes were perhaps the only notable thing about his face. They shone a piercing blue, but more importantly, they weren't the angular, angry eyes she expected to see, but rather the intelligent, expressive eyes of an artist. Eyes that did not miss details.
The Zealot focused on her for a moment, as though attempting to read her thoughts, before returning to Tobin.
"I am going to need something from you, though your acceleration of my timetable by witnessing my presence here tonight means that you'll be waiting around a bit for your role to come into play."
"I'm not doing anything for you. You just murdered 173 people, asshole. The only thing I'm going to do for you is make sure your life is as brief and insignificant as I can."
"How terribly short sighted of you, Tobin. Sophia would have expected more. In fact, she is."
The room fell silent. The shouting of the search and rescue crews, the crunching and grinding of their excavation machinery beyond the demolished portion of the south wall faded.
He didn't move. Didn't speak. His mechanical eyes lost focus, and Dru stepped closer to catch him should he fall. Tobin quickly regained his composure, bringing with it a white hot intensity directed at the slender man in front of them.
"I will kill you if you touch her."
The Zealot smiled. It was lopsided, lecherous, and the equal to Tobin's merciless glare.
"You already threatened that. Next time, perhaps you should hold back a little, perhaps avoid blowing your proverbial load before you have a sense of how the encounter is going to go. Regardless, I've already touched her."
The 4" Karambit knife was in Tobin's hand before the analytical parts of his brain could have reminded him of its futility.
"What...did you do to her?" The sound of Tobin's voice, forced through gritted teeth, was more trash compactor than human speech.
"I took something out, and put something back in. You're going to be upset at first, but if you play along, you'll be grateful I stepped in when I did."
"What are you talking about?"
The Zealot started towards the door. "Walk with me."
Tobin looked at Dru. In his eyes, she saw a man at the tenuous end of his composure. Unable to offer any real consolation, she shrugged. The motion felt stupid and useless, an involuntary response to confusion.
The Zealot called back over his shoulder, "This projection is being served locally from Tobin's SideARM, from which I've massaged superuser status. I can quite easily go wherever you go. I'd avoid talking too much to me in the presence of others, though. Since I'm inserting my avatar into a private layer that they can't see, it might bring your sanity into question."
Dru turned to follow, closely tailed by Tobin. The voice of the robed figure striding away from them never broke cadence.
"Sophia had a dangerous heart valve condition that she probably never told you about. Not wanting to worry you while you were away, and all."
"And?" Tobin wasn't able to mask the irritation from his voice.
"And...it's no longer a problem. You see, while you may think me a monster, I'm not without a desire for the greater good. In fact, while my methods are necessarily direct, my end goal is the betterment of all mankind."
"And how does harming Sophia bring you closer to that?"
"Sophia is merely a motivating factor, a way for me to ensure your cooperation. As I already said, I need something from you. And I didn't harm Sophia. I told you that as well. I merely fixed a heart condition by replacing her defective heart with a very expensive cybernetic unit. For free. You're welcome, and try to pay attention, I do hate repeating myself."
Tobin released a slow, cleansing breath. Dru guessed that he was not used to someone speaking to him like this.
"Alright. What do I have to do to get Sophia back?"
"That's between you and her. If you're inquiring as to what I'll be asking of you before I will release her, the answer is nothing. You can pick her up any time you wish. She is not my prisoner."
Tobin eyed The Zealot warily. He appeared to be leading them back to their car. Dru stepped aside to inform the onsite liaison that they were leaving to pursue a lead, and would check in later. She caught Tobin and The Zealot as they exited the narrow walkway leading from the warehouse district. Neither man spoke until they were seated in their cruiser.
Dru drove, as she typically did, and Tobin sat in the rear of the vehicle alongside The Zealot. To anyone passing by, it must have looked as though Tobin was suspected of committing a crime.
The Zealot resumed speaking once they could no longer see the flashing lights of the crime scene. "We need to get on the highway and go north. I've programmed the navigational system to prompt you as we approach each turn, but not before. Too much information all at once can be a bad thing."
Dru made the next right, and a short distance later merged onto the highway as instructed.
Tobin, quiet during their time in the car, finally spoke. "I don't understand. Why would you do this?"
The Zealot pursed his lips, thinking. "I am a pragmatic creature, as are we all when emotion is removed from our decision making processes. I replaced her heart for two reasons. The first is that I need her to live long enough for you to accomplish the task I will set out for you in the coming weeks, and the second is that I needed a place to irrevocably install the small explosive device that will serve as leverage."
Tobin finally took the swipe at The Zealot he had been restraining, passing the hooked blade of the Karambit efficiently through the neck of the projection. The blade passed cleanly through open space, barely missing the rear headrest.
The Zealot’s expression didn’t change. "Do you feel better, now that you've purged that impulse?"
Tobin's expression indicated otherwise.
"As I said, the explosive device is merely leverage. I will continue to input the daily deactivation code, extending her life another 24 hours, and will input the permanent deactivation code upon conclusion of our business. At that point, attempting to remove the explosives will no longer trigger the detonation. Any attempt to intervene by medical personnel will cause instantaneous loss of life to anyone standing within several hundred feet. I will give you a task in the next week, and I want you to understand now that it is not a task you will object to, outside of the motivational methods I have already outlined."
"But you aren't ready to tell me what this task is."
The Zealot parroted his response. "But I am not ready to tell you what this task is."
Another cleansing breath from Tobin.
Dru could feel the tension begin to flow out of her. Even though the bomb still hung over their heads like a proverbial sword of Damocles, they all understood the stakes, and also that he wanted something from Tobin. While he did not have ultimate control over the situation, knowing they had a small amount of leverage left her with hope that they might make their way clear of this alive.
Tobin, seemingly on the same page, added, "I have no choice but to pursue you, even now. It will look strange if we just throw in the towel."
The Zealot smiled. "Oh, I understand that. You have my permission to make a good show of it. That said, you will share none of what we have discussed today with anyone."
"That's not going to scan with my boss."
"As far as your boss is concerned, I died in tonight's explosion. I have left genetic information in several of the implants that my simulations indicated would survive the blast. This DNA is not in any database, so there will be no means to disprove your story."
>
That stoked Dru's curiosity. "You expect us to believe that your DNA isn't on file?"
The Zealot turned to her, the makings of a smile twitching at the right corner of his mouth. "Oh, my DNA is most certainly on file...somewhere. You are quite right that it is logistically impossible to expunge that. However, I have found a ready source of untraceable DNA. A descriptive match for this visage, cloned from an aborted fetus. I was able to match the physical descriptions of the prospective parents to this physical description. Or the other way around, who knows? I just hope the mother was not keeping secrets from the father. That would be embarrassing for all involved."
She wanted to throw up, pull the car over, and pistol whip the hologram until she couldn't lift her arm, but the tone in his voice indicated that the process was unavoidable, and not anything from which he drew any enjoyment or satisfaction. It was just enough detachment to let her keep her lunch, but she could not let the remark go without voicing some disapproval.
"You're a sick fuck."
She delivered the line without turning around or making eye contact.
The Zealot paused, pensive, before calmly responding. "I can see why you would think that. The slaughter of a defenseless child is such a waste of potential. So much possibility, so many things that child could have gone on to do, so many years of it being cute, toddling around while everyone pretends to have its best interests in mind. I did not choose to abort the baby, Dru. I simply put its remains to my use, as opposed to the alternative medical uses that it would have gone to had I not stepped in. As I said, I'm a pragmatist."
The exchange had not made a noticeable impact on Tobin's expression, which was already appropriately notched somewhere between disapproving authority figure and a person preparing to throw the lever on a guillotine.
In the void of Tobin's silence, Dru punctuated the exchange. "Whatever you have to tell yourself."
Already focused on his face, unable to break eye contact through the rearview mirror like a person crossing a particularly dangerous brand of snake, she saw The Zealot turn his head to look out the window. A meaningless affectation meant to end the exchange, but it got Dru thinking. Since he was not there physically, everything he saw had to be from Tobin's perspective, through his cybernetic eyes, or from Dru's SideARM.
The seeds of an idea formed in her head.
A neural network, originating at the implant affixed to the base of Tobin's skull, controlled his eyes. Thin tracer wires extended deep into his skull, terminating at thousands of points in his brain. She wasn't sure, but she couldn't discount the possibility that The Zealot might be able to read his thoughts, perhaps even sense his emotions. For her plan to work, she needed it to escape The Zealot's attention. That meant she not only had to hide it from him; but from Tobin as well. She couldn't risk her partner becoming unwitting surveillance.
Tobin was ex Special Forces, and probably the most insightful and observant FBI Agent she had ever known. Hiding her plan from him would not be easy. She also needed to lock down a few pieces of information before she could say if there was even a chance to turn the tables on the psychotic apparition seated behind her.
Dru wondered why he was trying so hard to put them at ease. He never made a move that had not been previously calculated, scrutinized, and had a contingency waiting. Something about his smug expression ate at her until she couldn't stand not turning his screws for a minute.
"Why not just tell me where we're going? Why the suspense?"
When he shifted his eyes to hers, she could see the way his gaze wavered against the undulations of the vehicle. He was not watching from her perspective, but from Tobin's. Had he been watching from her perspective, with his projection able to see itself without having to guess perspective, it would have locked on to her face and remained steady. Since he watched from Tobin's gaze, he was constantly adjusting, and that showed up as his eyes tracking all over her face. Sensing her attempt to read him, he answered.
"Do I really have to answer that?"
After fifteen minutes with the man, even if only with his displaced shadow, she thought she knew enough about him to nail down a few points of his character. Many of his responses had been petulant regarding intelligence, or at least in comparing his intelligence to others. Perhaps she could use that to her advantage by downplaying her abilities. Not pretending to be useless, just consciously dropping her IQ a few dozen points in the hopes that The Zealot would drop his guard, and let something slip.
She shrugged, and his eyes unfocused. It was not quite an eye roll, but as if it pained him to look at her, that the glare of her ignorance might infect him if he looked at her too directly. When he spoke, his voice came out in a sigh.
"Fine, I'll spell it out for you. You might not be willing to risk Sophia's life, but I'm sure Agent Maldovan here would have a surgical field team and a brigade of Agents at the facility prior to our arrival."
"I'm not sure either of us would want to risk Sophia's life for that chance to catch you."
He scoffed and returned his gaze back to the window.
It was the type of slip she was looking for. He wasn't worried about being caught because he wouldn't be at the warehouse, at least by the time they reached it. Another cog of the plan dropped into place. She felt abandoned by Tobin, even though his inability to help his own cause was no fault of his own. She couldn't do anything that The Zealot could see or hear through her SideARM, which made things difficult, and slowed her down.
Dru understood what needed to happen. She needed to find a way to disable the bomb inside Sophia's chest, without disabling the heart itself. Whatever plan she came up with could go wrong in half a dozen ways, so she resolved to use whatever time they had before they arrived to find ways to minimize that risk.
The Zealot viewed everything through Tobin's implant, or was focused on his point of view. It made sense; given that Tobin's enhancements would give him more information, but Dru could not be 100% sure that he wasn't also inside of her SideARM. Active frequency dampeners lined her jacket pockets, shielding the device inside from everything except the low power, high priority quantum encrypted signals necessary for its function. The SideARM automatically raised and lowered the shielding as needed with microsecond latency. In short, the gate was never open long enough for an intrusion to get in. Even knowing this, there would be risk involved in deviating from expectation.
The danger to Sophia grew with every city block as they closed on her location. If Dru was going to do something, now would be the time to start the ball rolling.
Careful to keep her eyes on the road, she took advantage of Tobin being in the back seat and reached down to her pocket. She worked the cover to her SideARM apart, careful to keep all movement hidden from the shoulders up. Tobin might have a range of vision that could see through her seat, but she also knew he had to consciously will his implant to enable it. Or, in this case, The Zealot would need to do so.
Working from muscle memory, she traced her left hand across the surface of the circuit board inside, knowing roughly where the battery connector would be. She glanced up at The Zealot, then over to Tobin. The Zealot continued his charade of finding interesting things outside of the cruiser to look at. Tobin stared bleakly through the opposing side of the windshield.
Her finger caught the only ridge of plastic on the otherwise featureless board, and she set to work trying to dislodge the battery connector. If her SideARM went offline and The Zealot didn't react, she would know he was not actively monitoring it. It was a pretty big piece of whatever plan she might put into motion. The onboard navigation directed her to turn right, and she glanced up to see The Zealot watching her.
She didn't respond, just adjusted her arm position to ready for the turn, hoping that an exaggerated movement with her right hand would deflect any attention paid to her as she removed her left hand from her pocket. Careful to simulate her normal mannerisms for fear of discovery, Dru turned as instructed before returning to her previous position
in what she hoped was an appropriately casual sequence of movements.
The withdrawals from the neurotransmitters added an unwelcome twitchiness to her hands, demanding every ounce of focus not dedicated to driving as she again felt for the clip holding the battery's ribbon cable. Feeling it, she flipped the miniscule plastic clip that locked the cable in place with her thumbnail. She placed her thumb atop the cable, the tension of the socket the only thing keeping her SideARM online.
One more glance, to verify that both men in the back seat were otherwise occupied. Tobin first, the mechanical iris' of his cybernetic eyes slightly wider than normal, unfocused. For the first time, Dru recognized it for what it was. Fear. She had never seen Tobin afraid before.
He really loved his ex wife. The Zealot knew that, knew it would be the perfect fulcrum with which to leverage Tobin's cooperation. How much did he know about her? Had he been thorough enough to discover her background as a psychology major in college, her short tenure as a reformative psychologist with the corrections system before joining the FBI? Something told her he hadn't bothered. He had accepted her earlier ploy of ignorance too easily.
Probably a chauvinist, she thought. Relief at the lack of attention overwhelmed any anger at him as she slid her thumb and separated the cable from its socket.
The heads up display in her contacts cut out immediately, and the naked feeling of detachment surprised her. It took every ounce of courage to suppress any external reactions, but losing the ability to instantly answer any question shook her confidence more than she cared to admit. A moment earlier, anything she wanted to know was only a glance away. Then...nothing.
The navigation unit directed her to make another turn, and her sense of abandonment from the internet took a back seat to her current circumstance. Moments earlier, the concept of The Zealot being in charge had terrified her, and now it was the only thing keeping her from pulling over and hyperventilating. She made a mental point to start unplugging more often, if she survived this ordeal. This dependency was a weakness of character she could not tolerate.
UnCommon Bodies: A Collection of Oddities, Survivors, and Other Impossibilities (UnCommon Anthologies Book 1) Page 26
