Slow, shallow breaths pulled her heart back to baseline before the display in the dash called out the next turn. They were making their way towards the industrial district, via the most circuitous route Dru had ever seen. The Zealot was not taking chances, fearing a tail. Dru assumed he had probably blocked the car's tracking device before they left the explosion site as well.
Wireless connectivity was everywhere, both a blessing and a curse. It made magic possible, but it also left cracks for demons like The Zealot.
After the third turn, Dru warmed to the knowledge that The Zealot wasn't monitoring her SideARM. As a security measure, the hardware necessary to remotely track her SideARM had been omitted from the design, so unless he actively tried to access it, he would have no way of knowing if it was online or not. A few years before she joined the force, a hacker targeted police during a sequence of riots, posting real time information on their locations.
By the time the riots subsided, nearly half the police force had been wiped out in ambushes. Once they discovered the problem, all police issue SideARM's were redesigned at the hardware level, and replaced with updated units for their protection. Acknowledging that any software was at some level vulnerable, they simply removed the parts necessary for that function.
If The Zealot tried to access her point of view later on, she could always offer the excuse that the battery died. As feeble as it would sound, there would be no way to prove her story false. Uncertainty was preferable to outright discovery.
The gaps in her plan surfaced again, and her mind grasped at them like a drowning person might a life preserver. She needed a way to separate the explosive from the cybernetic heart, a way to disable the explosive, and a way to do it without The Zealot or Tobin realizing it was happening until it was too late to detonate the device.
Was she 100% certain The Zealot would not be with Sophia? Dru was betting all of their lives on it. Everything in his profile indicated a severe level of risk aversion. He worked through proxies. He worked from the shadows, wirelessly pulling strings so others took the fall if things went bankrupt.
No, he would be there, but he would not be there.
Dru combed her mind for any angle she could exploit, any facet of the situation that The Zealot might have overlooked. Her father's heart was cybernetic, a replacement after decades of heart disease risk finally came to fruition as a heart attack. She remembered going through the literature with him, reading all of the options, helping him select his new heart. The entire process felt like whittling down the world's most surreal Christmas list. She also remembered that he had to have a second surgery a few years later, when the device they had carefully selected needed to be replaced because of a factory defect.
The design they had initially chosen was found to be susceptible to electromagnetic radiation. In the unlikely event that a transformer blew within fifteen feet of him, or some other large scale electrical burst, there was a chance that the microprocessor controlling his heart could be permanently damaged, so her father went in for a second surgery. His new heart was, by most accounts, almost bullet proof, and guaranteed to outlive him.
Dru rolled the radiation angle around in her mind. If she knew for sure that the heart was a newer model, one of the electromagnetic pulse grenades in the trunk of their cruiser could disable the explosives. It was unlikely that The Zealot would have been able to install the explosives inside of the heart. They were tightly engineered, and designed in such as way that damaging the unit would send out a distress signal. Assuming her own memories weren't betraying her. Her habitual reliance on the recall function built into her SideARM allowed her to be lax on memory retention, since it recorded everything and kept the pertinent details from every day. Without it, she found herself doubting her ability to dredge up the unremarkable memories.
They were nearly to the industrial district now. They were running out of time, and when it ran out completely, she would have to start taking chances. They would never again know where The Zealot's attention was focused, where he was watching from. Dru wanted to let Tobin in on the plan, but there was no way to risk doing so. If The Zealot suspected her, he could trigger the implant in an instant. Tobin's hijacked senses would give him every opportunity to catch her before she had the chance.
They arrived at the warehouse a few minutes later, and the navigation system instructed them to enter the building by a small entrance door on the south facing wall. Dru climbed from the car, immediately making her way to the trunk, nearly reaching it before Tobin spoke up.
"Dru, what are you doing?"
She assumed that The Zealot had mentioned something, due to the delay in the response. He would have tried to say something to her first, and resorted to threatening Tobin to reach her when that hadn't worked.
"I'm getting the First Aid kit. If that asshole butchered the job, do you want me to have to run back out here for it while she's bleeding out?"
She walked right through her statement, positive The Zealot would object, but she would have the trunk lid open and the EMP grenade in her pocket before his command for her to stop could relay back through Tobin.
She snatched the First Aid kit as well, and the trunk lid was already coming down when Tobin spoke again.
"He wants to know why your SideARM is off."
"The battery is dead. I didn't have a chance to get a decent charge on it before you called me for the stakeout."
Tobin looked at her, scanning her for deceit. Dru understood The Zealot was probably scanning her for a great deal more than that, relieved that she had been able to get the EMP grenade into one of the shielded pockets in her jacket.
Minimally satisfied, Tobin turned to go. Dru made her way around the car and followed him into the building.
Inside, a diffused shaft of light illuminated a gleaming white Autosurgeon suite with Sophia atop it, wrapped within a sheet of antimicrobial cloth. Small specks of bright red wicked slowly outward through the fabric atop her chest, indicating recently completed surgery.
Tobin ran to her side, gingerly lifting the cloth to inspect her wound. He turned away, visibly composing himself. "I'm taking her some place to make sure this doesn't get infected."
A pause, during which Dru assumed The Zealot would be reminding him of the "no medical personnel" portion of their agreement.
"Then not a hospital, but I need someone with medical training to see her."
Another pause. Not knowing the other half of the conversation put Dru on edge, and she stepped forward to offer assistance, more to diffuse the helplessness she felt than out of any expectation of helping matters.
"Let me see."
She inspected the wound, and saw that the stitching was tight, uniform and even, covered with the protective tape Autosurgeons used as a means to quickly dress and seal wounds after sterilization. A tinge of amber around the wound indicated that it had been sterilized after surgery, carrying with it the assumption that sterilization had taken place prior to it as well.
She stepped back and turned to Tobin. "Everything I can see tells me the procedure was carried out as cleanly as possible in a place like this. The wound is sterilized and sealed like you'd expect from a properly maintained Autosurgeon."
Tobin nodded reluctantly, moving away from the surgical suite to address The Zealot. Dru tried to assemble the rest of the conversation in her mind, given the half of it that she was allowed to hear.
"So I can take her now?"
"Yes, as I said. But do not cross me, it requires more thought for me to keep her alive than to let her die."
As The Zealot spoke, his voice emanated from a hijacked speaker in the Autosurgeon. Apparently, using Tobin as a proxy had proven too cumbersome.
"Fine, then we're going. I have no choice but to play your little game. For now."
"Of course you don't. And I will keep my word about keeping her alive, so long as you continue to play along."
Dru needed to make her move. She expected Tobin to argue, but he had all
too easily agreed to The Zealot's terms in order to get Sophia out of the warehouse. Maybe she could use that.
"You hate augmentations, or anything you see as unnatural. Why should Tobin believe you won't kill her down the road? Why would you kill nearly every augmented human who crossed your path, only to let that one live?"
She pointed to Sophia, still on the operating table a few feet away from a newly concerned Tobin.
"She's right. This makes no sense."
The Zealot smiled. "This 'Zealot' persona the media has cultivated has served my purposes until now, so I've allowed it to exist. If I were to be completely transparent, I would tell you that I am almost precisely the antithesi-."
Tobin cut him off.
"Stop talking in circles and answer her."
"I have." The Zealots voice was cold, imbued with the tone of a machine with its finger on a trigger.
"Then answer me. No more metaphors, no more half truths. You have exactly ten words before I assume you're going to kill her anyway, and I take her with me and you can fuck off in regards to everything else."
The man in the robe paused for a moment, a smirk spreading slowly across his face. "We must become ghosts in the machine to survive," and after a pause, "satisfied?"
During the exchange, Dru made her way around the Autosurgeon and checked the main power switch located on the side opposite Tobin and the Zealot. Finding it off, she reached into her pocket and triggered the grenade without further hesitation, releasing it from her hand so as not to be burnt by the discharge mechanism.
The snap of the grenade was followed by several other sounds in quick succession; every light bulb in the room immediately blew, and Tobin fell to his knees, clutching his head as he screamed in pain.
Ignoring her agonized partner, she threw the switch on the Autosurgeon and began removing the antimicrobial cloth from Sophia.
Hearing the noise, Tobin struggled to his feet. "Dru! What's happening, I can't see!"
"Tobin, calm down. I had to disable your implant and any tech in the area that could send a trigger signal to blow the bomb in Sophia's chest. I'm booting up the Autosurgeon now to remove it before he finds another way to set it off."
Tobin growled, "You're going to get her killed!"
The Autosurgeon finished it's fast-boot sequence, and laser light dappled the surface of Sophia's body from a sensor mounted above her.
"Scans indicate that the subject is recovering from previous surgical intervention, and is no longer at risk. Please state the elective measures you would like taken at this time."
Dru ignored Tobin, staggering around with hands outstretched, and shouted at the machine.
"We suspect an explosive device to have been coupled with the heart implant during the prior surgery. Please scan and advise."
Beneath the work surface, a circular beam of beige painted metal slid out past the end of the bed and rotated around to pass over and under Sophia's inert body.
"No foreign bodies detected."
"What?"
The machine began to repeat the message, but Dru cut it off. "Scan again, and display region from previous surgery."
The machine did as ordered, showing a high resolution MRI of the requested area on the side display panel. Dru manipulated the three dimensional simulation, inspecting all sides of the cybernetic heart. Nothing was implanted outside of it, and by checking the specs on an adjoining readout, she could tell that the device was indeed intact, unaltered, shielded from EMP and functioning normally.
Tobin screamed at her from nearby, his voice a growl pushed through a veil of pain. A thin tendril of smoke emanated from the singed implant at the base of his skull.
"Dru, tell me what the fuck is going on! Is she alright?"
Dru swallowed before speaking. "Y...yes, Tobin. She's fine. There is no explosive in her chest. He was bluffing."
"What? There's no explosive?" Tobin's voice, almost pleading, made Dru want to cry.
"I just scanned her twice. I'm looking at it right now. There's no evidence of anything except a fully functioning, late model cybernetic heart inside her, but let's get her in the car and take her to the hospital to be sure."
Tobin, using Dru's voice to echolocate her position, made his way to her side.
"Thank god. Let's get her out of here, before that motherfucker has a chance to bring up a contingency plan. I'll feel better having her checked by a machine not supplied by the guy who put her in this position. I'll carry her, show me the way out."
Dru guided his hands to lifting positions beneath her shoulders and knees, and with a hand on his shoulder, aimed him at the exit. As Sophia's weight was removed from the machine, the surgery table clicked from somewhere deep inside, a pressure switch engaging.
The side display again flickered to life, and The Zealot's face appeared.
"Very well done, Dru."
She whirled around, her gun already leveled at the source of the sound. She stepped outside of the Autosurgeon's reach should The Zealot decide to send it instructions to perform more impromptu surgery.
"What do you want? I called your bluff, and I won. We're done here."
The Zealot laughed. "Yes, indeed you did. Of course, I anticipated something like this might happen. Actually, this entire game was designed to test your resourcefulness. It's true that I'm not even on the West Coast right now, as you must have suspected prior to risking Sophia's life. During my research, I discovered that she had a heart abnormality that might impugn my plans later on if she had an episode over here while Tobin was conducting business on my behalf, so I corrected it. As I said, I have a task for Tobin. While I knew there was a chance one of you might destroy the illusion I carefully crafted regarding the explosive, the part about needing Tobin's services was not a fabrication. Unfortunately, I expect that you will be along with him when he returns to Maine, and I didn't have time to research you as thoroughly as I have him, necessitating this little test of character."
Dru turned to Tobin, "What's in Maine?"
Tobin's face grew taut.
"Tobin is starting to put together the pieces now, no doubt. I can see it on his face. Ruthless move, by the way, risking permanent damage to his brain with an EMP grenade to save Sophia's life. A risk I calculated for you already. Would you like to know if the damage will be permanent?"
"Yes," Tobin answered before Dru had the chance to turn him down, and the naked need in his voice made her feel instantly guilty. She did what she did for a good reason, but she was still responsible for his current—perhaps permanent—disabilitys. That she assumed anything for him was wrong of her, but she'd done it for Sophia and had to believe it's what he would have wanted.
The Zealot continued, "By my calculations, the probability is that the damage would remain localized to the external portion of the implant. As you no doubt know, it is replaceable through an outpatient procedure, followed by a calibration session. Internal microfiber structures have only a 3% chance of permanent damage, though your ocular prosthetics will need to be replaced. Frankly, you needed the upgrade to help accomplish the task I will set out for you, and I knew you wouldn't accept it unless the units you wore now lost function."
Tobin took a step closer. "So, you planned all of this?"
"Well, I planned to leave you two options. Owing to the immense complexity of motivating factors that passes for human free will, that's really the best I could hope for. I feel as though I understand your motivations enough to remove most of the doubt from such an approximation, so, yes, I guess you could say I planned for you to either take Sophia, subservient to the idea that you had to do what I asked at the expense of her life, or that you would find a way to disable the bomb, and I would have to let slip another piece of information to draw you back to Maine."
"And what information is that?"
"That we've met before."
Tobin nodded, the news confirming something he had suspected for a while now. "ATLAS."
"Indeed. Now I believe you
know where you need to be."
Tobin took another slow step towards the machine. "Yes. And once I get back to Maine, I'm going to find you, and I'm going to do things to you deemed illegal under the Geneva Convention."
"Promises. Regardless, I want you to try to do just that. It's no fun stealing money from the government without a foil who is up to the task. It's boring. Since the only joy in my life is the rush of staying one step ahead of law enforcement, I thought it might be fun to bring you back into our little game again. Now that Sophia's health problems are out of the way, you won't have any distractions."
Tobin turned to leave, daring few blind steps in the expanse of the warehouse.
"I know where to start looking. You're going to regret all of this. Dru, let's go."
Dru caught up to him. "Who is ATLAS?"
"A hacker and thief that worked through augmented reality to steal millions from Central Credit Holding last year. He's the reason Sophia is even here on the West Coast. He manipulated a transfer at the company she worked for in order to get me to follow her instead of pursuing him. I almost caught him at the Maine/Canada border, but he escaped."
"My god. All of this...fabricating The Zealot persona to steal body parts, which he used to destroy a facility for reasons that no longer seem to make any sense...Kidnapping Sophia, implanting her with a cybernetic heart, pretending to implant a bomb to force you into doing what he wanted...it's so elaborate. The man is a psychopath."
Dru guided them to the car, helping him place Sophia in the back seat. Tobin sat in the back with her, cradling her head.
"Yeah, and when I get my hands on him, he's going to regret ever involving my family in any of it."
Note from the Author:
The preceding tale, "The Zealot" is a short story set in Christopher Godsoe's d.o.mai.n series. Chronologically, it takes place following the first novel in the series, pre://d.o.mai.n, and prior to the events of the second novel, Infinite Loop, which will be released in 2016. The Zealot spoils little about the plot of the preceding novel, but having read pre://d.o.mai.n will place this story in a different context. That being said, upon completion of pre://d.o.mai.n, you may wish to return to this story, as additional details will be noticeable not only from pre://d.o.mai.n, but also in the upcoming Infinite Loop.
UnCommon Bodies: A Collection of Oddities, Survivors, and Other Impossibilities (UnCommon Anthologies Book 1) Page 27
