Hunting Nora Stone

by Colin Weldon

  “Now hold on,” she said taking a hold of the spike and sliding it out of his shoulder. Pain returned, but only for a moment.

  “Now this will hurt,” she said to a disorientated Eddie.

  She placed left and right hand on either side of the wound respectively. Eddie felt intense heat and a blinding pain followed by the smell of burning flesh. The sounds of Helicopters drew closer. Nora looked up at the spotlight.

  “I have to go Eddie, you’ll live, I am sorry about Holt, he was one of the good ones,” she said moving away from him.

  “Wait,” Eddie mumbled half in a dream like state.

  “I’ll see you again,” she said moving to the edge of the bridge.

  She stepped up on its ledge.

  “Don’t run,” Eddie shouted as the world began to dim.

  “Goodbye Eddie Conrad,” she said before taking a graceful leap over the edge.

  Eddie couldn’t hold it any more and the world drifted away to nothingness.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  Julian Miller sat in the toilet cubicle and waited. He could hear the commotion nearby as the soldiers began storming the building. His staff had no idea what the hell was going on. He thought about allowing himself to be taken into custody, figured that maybe there was a chance that he could maybe ride it out. The EMP he had fired from the server rooms had already effectively sent the building back into the Stone Age. He rolled the pill around his fingers and thought about it. He knew deep down that he was only stalling. He loved his country. It was a small sacrifice to make to ensure its position as the most powerful nation on Earth. He had been right of course, about Conrad, about the whole mission. Had pleaded with the stubborn and pig-headed Wise to listen to him but the Director was beyond arrogant. He was a sociopath with whom there was no reasoning. The Quorum would take care of him. He took comfort in that, and when they installed his replacement, they would make sure the same mistakes would never be made again. He heard the heavy footfall of military boots. There was a bang on the cubicle door. He thought again about letting them take him. He could tell them everything, maybe get some sort of deal. He smiled at the absurdity of it. There was nowhere he could run. He looked at the little white pill and closed his eyes as the door to his stall was suddenly kicked in. He opened his eyes and saw the face of a young soldier staring at him. He must have only been about twenty. He looked at the soldier coldly and threw the pill into his mouth, biting down hard. In the last second of life he had left he glanced at the soldier and smiled, giving him a salute.

  * * *

  Alex Knight peered down over the Brooklyn Bridge. He figured they had maybe two minutes before they were escorted out of the area.

  “Tell me you got that,” Bess heard him say through her head set.

  Bess just nodded, keeping her camera pointed straight down. Alex could not believe what he had just seen. It looked like a person had just exploded as they fell from the bridge.

  “There is some seriously fucked up shit going on down there,” said Bess beside him.

  Alex stayed silent and tried to keep the chopper at under five hundred feet so that Bess could get whatever she could in the can before they were forced to break away. There was already an Apache helicopter on to their right giving them a break away order over their PA system. Alex knew they had at most another minute before they fired a warning shot.

  It turned out to be less. The sounds of bullets whizzing by the cockpit made Alex jump.

  “Jesus, they’re shooting at us,” Bess said suddenly.

  “Don’t stop filming!” Alex said pulling up the collective and gaining some height.

  “CLEAR THE AREA, NOW OR YOU WILL BE SHOT DOWN!” came a strong voice from off to his right.

  Alex turned his flight controls hard right and pointed the nose away from the city making it clear to the following military escort that they were leaving. As Alex’s heart beat hard in his chest, he knew he had just witnessed something big.

  “DO NOT DEVIATE. FOLLOW THIS AIRCRAFT,” came the loud booming voice that seemed to come from all around them.

  “They’re gonna take our footage,” said Bess.

  “Can you transfer it?” Alex said, looking all around him to make sure the Apache was not having second thoughts about shooting them down.

  “I’ll try, but these guys are pretty thorough, I may have to get creative,” said Bess.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Benjamin Wise opened his eyes and looked out of the window. The short nap had been unexpected but welcome. The rolling clouds beneath him were coated in a layer of gold as the sun began to set behind them. He pulled back the sleeve of his shirt and looked at his gold-rimmed Patek Phillipe watch, which had been gifted to him by Royo’s predecessor. A far more amenable man, and one of their own. He reached over to the control panel on his chair and pressed the button turning the television and switching to CNN. There was cell phone footage of what looked like the Brooklyn Bridge swarming with police cars and traffic. There were people all over the place. The bottom ‘Breaking News’ ticker read ‘Explosion in the Hudson’.

  Wise leant forward in his chair and frowned looking at the confusing shaking camera footage. He turned up the volume.

  “…Large explosion which seems so have been from a suicide bomber who was either pushed or jumped over the edge of the Brooklyn Bridge. The bomb detonated under water, we have not, as of yet gotten confirmation of any….”

  Wise shut off the TV in a panic and grabbed the intercom on the wall. He pressed the call button. There was no answer. The line was dead. He hit the button for the cockpit. Again, silence. He suddenly felt a slight pressure in the pit of his stomach, as if the plane was losing altitude. He looked out the window. Sure enough, the plane seemed to be pitching forward. He got up from his seat and moved towards the door to the cockpit, which was closed. He banged on it.

  “Pilot! what the hell is going on?” he shouted, “open this door.”

  No answer. He felt the plane pitch further forward as he turned and made his way back to his chair, needing to hold onto the armrest. He climbed into it, fastening his seatbelt as the plane began angling dramatically downwards. His heart began to race. This was very wrong. He felt his body as it pressed up against the chair, the plane now in a nosedive, free-falling from the sky.

  “What the hell is going on!” he shouted at the cockpit. He looked to his left and saw a layer of cloud as the plane penetrated it like a bullet. It emerged a few seconds later and that’s when Wise saw it, a parachute gliding gently in the wind. His chest seized with the shock as he looked back at cockpit door. There was a light pinging noise from overhead. Like a call button. He looked up to see where the noise was coming from. Then he heard a voice.

  “Director Wise, your services will no longer be required,” said a familiar voice.

  He had heard it before. He could not put a face to it as the fear of what was about to happen had taken hold. There was no reasoning with it. No getting out of it. The pilot was gone. The cockpit locked. He was dead.

  “Wait!” Wise shouted at the ceiling, “I can fix this. They have not found the Academy, you still need me!”

  No answer. Only the sound of the left wing cracking and tearing off the fuselage as the plane plummeted. Wise thought about jumping but knew it would make no difference. It was funny, he thought to himself, what the mind will do in desperation. He looked out and saw the peak of a large mountain growing in the window. He wondered what it was about to feel like. Anger flooded his mind as he hit the window in fury.

  “Fuck you, Conrad!” he shouted. The plane began to enter a spin. His body, now pinned to the seat, strained against the force. He heard a loud crashing sound as a whoosh of air flooded the inside of the cabin. He turned his head behind him and saw the tail of the jet missing. He looked up at the clouds over-head as they spun wildly. He began to get dizzy. Outside a rock face loomed
. He silently thanked god that at least this would be over quickly. Four seconds later it was.

  One Week Later

  Eddie waited outside the entrance to the Oval Office. He adjusted his tie with his good arm and adjusted the sling around his neck.

  “You can go in now,” said the president’s secretary, a woman in her mid-thirties who seemed efficient and precise.

  Eddie nodded and smiled at her; she reciprocated. He turned back and opened the handle, stepping inside.

  “Eddie, come in,” said President Royo, who was seated on one of the sofas in the centre of the room.

  This was the second time Eddie had been in the Oval. The first was just after he had got back, to receive the.. He walked across the plush carpet ad nodded to Royo who beckoned him to sit down.

  “How’s the shoulder?’’ said Royo.

  In truth, it hurt like hell. The metal rod had torn tendons, muscle and for one very scary moment there had been talk of amputation due to a blood clot. Luckily his arm was still attached.

  “It’s fine sir, thank you for asking,” Eddie replied, smiling as he sat down.

  Royo placed the sheets of paper he was reading back on the desk.

  “I wanted to personally thank you, Eddie,” said Royo.

  “Thank you sir, but with all due respect, it’s Todd Holt we owe our lives to. He was a brave man,” Eddie replied.

  Royo lowered his gaze to the floor before looking back up at and meeting Eddie’s eyes with a warm expression.

  “Yes, he was, that can’t be have been easy for you, losing two brothers under your watch,” Royo said.

  Eddie did not answer but he was right. He wondered if it was a curse.

  “It wasn’t your fault Eddie,” Royo said gently, sitting forward on the sofa.

  “Yes sir,” Eddie replied feeling far more emotion than was acceptable in the Oval.

  He suddenly wanted to leave.

  “He gave me a message for you before…” Eddie tailed off.

  “Oh?” Royo replied.

  “He said you owed him fifty bucks,” Eddie said, with a wry twitch of his mouth..

  Royo broke into a light laugh.

  “My ass I do, the season isn’t over yet,” Royo replied getting up and moving towards the desk.

  Royo picked up a file, returned to the sofa and handed it to Eddie.

  “Open it,” Royo said.

  The file had a Top Secret stamp on it. The CIA Jaguar logo was placed on the top.

  “Miller did a good job of wiping the data from the Jaguar servers. There was nothing left for us to investigate really other than his body. Wise’s jet went down in the Rockies in Colorado. Official report said it was pilot error,” Royo said.

  Eddie looked at him searchingly.

  “Yeah, that was my reaction too, I can’t find any link or any record of this Quorum that Stone referred to. Quite frankly, we have no idea who they are or what they represent. Or more to the point, the information that I am being fed is yielding no leads, which in of itself is worrying because if such an organisation exists then any information about it is being intercepted and filtered before reaching my office. Which means…” Royo said.

  “Which means it still has active operatives within the intelligence community, and maybe even the White House,” Eddie replied looking at the report, “What about this ‘Academy’ and project Tarsis program?”

  “Well,” said Royo sitting down, “Jaguar is on lockdown. The base at Area 51 was thoroughly searched. There was no evidence of any Academy, or any sign of any other augmented personnel. So unless there was another location that Wise was aware of where this so-called army of augments was being trained and developed, we can’t find it,” Royo said.

  Eddie sat back in his chair and rolled his shoulder to release a stiff muscle.

  “How can they hide a program this size? Nora Stone wanted to get to Nevada. The base at Area 51 is, I can only presume, the most well-protected facility to conduct this sort of research,” Eddie said.

  Royo sighed.

  “It’s always been a myth you know. The base is largely used to test military prototypes, new technologies and aircraft. There are bases like it all over the world, Eddie. This may all be nothing but a smokescreen. The underground facility at Jaguar where Tarsis was created is being poured over with a fine tooth comb. Quite frankly it has our scientists baffled. As far as I knew, we were nowhere near that level of sophistication in the field of cybernetics, and the mastermind behind all this has yet to be revealed. I am as astonished at the next man,” Royo said.

  Eddie sighed.

  “Any sign of a body?” Eddie said.

  “Nora Stone’s body?” Royo said.

  Eddie nodded. Royo shook his head.

  “No, they have dredged the entire river; found nothing,” Royo replied.

  Eddie shook his head.

  “Eddie, I want to offer you a job,” Royo said suddenly.

  Eddie looked up at him.

  “Sir?” he replied

  “I am going to reopen Jaguar. I’d like you to work with a skeleton crew to get it back up and running,” Royo said.

  “Sir?” Eddie said.

  “The Jaguar division. I want you to run it. Its primary responsibility will be to identify the source of this threat that has penetrated the shield of this administration. I need someone I can trust. Someone who knows what it’s like on the battlefield and someone who has will to do the right thing,” Royo said.

  Eddie was stunned.

  “Sir, I don’t think…”

  “I wish you could have met my wife, Eddie. She would have liked you. I know how lost and disillusioned the life we have chosen can make us, but in our positions, we can make a difference. I am asking you for a leap of faith,” Royo said.

  Eddie looked back at the file, then thought about all the unanswered questions. He felt a sense of determination fill his mind. He looked up at Royo and nodded.

  “Yes sir,” he replied, knowing damn well that he had no other choice anyway.

  Royo stood. Eddie stood with him. He extended his good arm and took the president’s hand.

  “We’re going to build a better world,” Royo said, “you and I.”

  Eddie felt the firm grip of Royo’s hand and nodded.

  “One other question,” Royo said, still holding Eddie’s hand.

  “Sir?” Eddie replied.

  “Do you like football?” Royo asked smiling.

  * * *

  Alex Knight sat at the news desk and stared into the camera.

  “Ten seconds,” said Scott in his ear.

  Alex was angry. Bess had been clever, but not clever enough. The pen drive she had swallowed containing every frame of footage she had shot over New York was gone. They had both been strip searched at the base. A gross violation of every legal right a person should have in this country. They had done it nonetheless. The camera had been taken. What Alex and Bess had not prepared for was the MRI. They had both been scanned and the pen drive had been detected in Bess’s stomach. They had given her laxatives and waited. They were interrogated for two days before being released with nothing but the clothes on their backs. Even the helicopter had been stripped down and searched. They were left with nothing. Alex had reviewed the bullshit footage shot on camera phones. Camera phones that had been taken by the military and returned with nothing but footage of police cars and shaky blurred images of traffic on the Brooklyn Bridge. He had nothing. Something huge had happened. He had seen it.

  Air Force One had crashed. There had been an international incident involving three air forces over the Atlantic with all governments claiming it was merely a training exercise gone wrong. None of the pilots could be reached for comment and the information about Air Force One released by the White House had said a catastrophic engine failure had caused the plan
e to force a landing. The wreckage had disappeared within twenty-four hours. There was not even a napkin left to examine. Alex had nothing and he was seriously pissed off about it.

  “Five seconds,” said Scott.

  Alex looked at the bullshit report he now had to read out live on air. The polished spun dry response from the White House, the useless “eye witness” accounts from the Brooklyn Bridge. The “terrorist” incident in Paris that was being blamed on Islamic militants. While it was certainly a huge story that would get a lot of airtime over the coming weeks, Alex knew there was something major at play here. He thought about quitting. About getting as far away as he could from this corporate media-controlled cesspool of non-information but something was holding him back. A curiosity, an anger that propelled him to get to the truth. He had decided to play the game that had been given to him. He would comb his hair, put on his makeup and be the puppet he was paid to be. He also knew he would find out the real truth eventually. . No matter what the cost. The light on the camera turned red and Alex looked into the lens. He was ready.

  “Good evening America, I am Alex Knight and these are our top stories tonight.”

  The Academy

  “Artemis you should be asleep,” said Doctor Tyler Shaw as he stood over her bed.

  She turned towards him, her eyes wide with fear.

  “Are you in pain?” Shaw said

  It was late and the barracks was in darkness. White light streamed in from the open door that led into the hallway. He looked back at Artemis who shook her head and pulled the covers to her neck. Small flickers of light from her implants sent speckles of colour over the sheets.

  “I saw her again,” she said sounding numb.

  “Saw who?” Shaw asked.

  “The woman, she was calling after me, screaming,” Artemis said.

  Shaw frowned and made a note to schedule her in for another neurological treatment.

  “It’s not real Artemis. You must sleep now. You have training in three hours and you have to be at your best,” Shaw said placing a hand onto her metallic arm.