by Mat Nastos
“The nanodrones that flow through the cybernetics and allow it to change shape operate at just under normal body temperature most of the time,” Mal explained. “If I’ve been injured, or if the nanites have altered the size or density of my arms, they can heat up to one hundred degrees or more…making it feel as if I have a fever.”
Amy’s eyes went wide at the full realization of what the cyborg had been forced to endure.
“My God…”
Shaking his head, Mal took a sip of the bright green liquid in his hand. “God had nothing to do with it. This is the work of an out of control group of men hiding behind the government.”
The venom contained in Mal’s voice caused them both to retreat into their drinks for a while. His anger radiated out from his body palpably. For several long minutes, neither spoke.
Amy finally broke the silence, her voice low and nearly indistinguishable from the background noise of the bar to anyone who didn’t possess computer-enhanced senses like Mal’s.
“I’ve heard David’s version of the story, but I want to hear it from you. What happened to you, Malcolm?”
Taking a deep breath and shifting his stool closer to hers, Mal launched into his tale. It began slow enough at first, detailing his final memories from before the ambush of his unit’s Black Hawk helicopter over the outskirts of Dahuk. The telling became faster and increasingly frantic as it progressed. More than once, Amy had to place her hand on Mal’s arm to quiet him down as his volume began to increase. From the moment he awoke in the secret downtown laboratory for the first time, to his escape and flight, to the destruction of Project Hardwired and its controlling computer, to the recent attempts on his life in the subway, Mal told her everything. He left nothing out.
Not even the death of his beloved Kristin.
As painful as it all was, even more than a month later, he laid it all out for her. If she was going to help him then she had to know everything, good or bad.
When he was finished he leaned back against the thin chromed back of his stool, emotionally exhausted. It was the first time he’d allowed himself to relive what had happened. Up until that point, he’d been moving so fast and running so hard he hadn’t taken the time to reflect on any of it.
“Wow,” said Amy, awestruck by what the man had gone through. It was too much, too unbelievable, for a normal person to process. If she hadn’t seen what had been done to his arms with her own eyes, the woman would have dismissed the entire thing as post-traumatic stress disorder, or an over-active imagination.
“Yeah…wow,” replied Mal, trying to get the attention of their waitress who was busy with a group of grabby business men on the opposite side of the bar. Sometimes he couldn’t believe it himself.
“You’re sort of like the Winter Soldier,” Amy commented, obviously trying to lighten the conversation’s tone.
Mal’s face scrunched up in mock disgust and horror at the statement. “‘Bucky?!’ You’re comparing me to Bucky?!”
“And what’s wrong with Bucky? He was good enough to be partners with Captain freakin’ America.”
Finally catching the attention of their waitress with the universal hand-signal of ‘bring us another round of drinks,’ Mal shrugged his wide shoulders. “Nothing, I guess. I’d just always thought of myself as a tad cooler than Bucky.”
“Who then?”
“Wolverine,” Mal grinned, flashing his most smoldering gaze upon the woman across the small table from him.
“No,” replied Amy flatly, rejecting his suggestion completely.
“‘No?!’” Mal was flabbergasted. “But…I’ve got the claws.”
Mal accentuated his words by making a tiger clawing motion with his gloved hands at the same time. Unfortunately for him, their waitress chose that moment to return with another pair of alcoholic beverages. She seemed no more impressed than Amy had been.
Looking at the barmaid with a smirk, Amy said once more, “No.”
“I’ve got the leather jacket!”
Both women shook their heads in unison.
“I haven’t shaved in a month!!” The rejection was quickly turning from humorous to ego-crushing for the tall, attractive cyborg.
“No.”
“Give me something here!”
Amy looked up at the waitress and grinned. In response, the woman, whose name tag read ‘Holly,’ crossed her arms and tilted her head in contemplation.
“Stand up,” ordered Holly with a tilt of her chin in Mal’s direction. The super-soldier responded, flexing every muscle he could in the process. “Now turn around.”
The women took ten full seconds examining Mal from head to toe. Amy snickered to herself as she noticed he was clenching his butt tight enough to turn coal into a diamond.
Peering back over his shoulder at his audience, which had grown to include half of the bar, Mal asked hopefully, “Well?”
“You’re not hot enough to be Wolverine,” said Holly as she turned on her heels and went back to work.
Mal’s jaw dropped.
“The jury finds the defendant ‘not hot enough,’” Amy said smugly. “Case dismissed.”
Flopping down onto the dark wood of his chair, dejected, Mal tossed back the entirety of his drink in despair, nearly choking himself on the tiny red cherry that floated in its center. “I am SO not leaving her a tip.” Mal glowered after the waitress as she vanished into the rear of the bar’s kitchen.
Amy’s face darkened. She pushed her drink back and looked Mal straight in the eyes. “Are we going to reminisce and play grab ass with the waitress all night or do you want to get down to the matter at hand? It’s your dime, Mal…what do you want to do?”
Nodding, Mal returned her stare. “OK…tell me about Congressman McGuinness.”
A thick black moleskin notebook appeared in Amy’s hands out of nowhere—a dark green bookmark with a bright white unicorn printed on its face was stuffed in between a pair of pages loaded with densely packed writing. Tapping her teeth unconsciously as she read through the book’s contents, Amy began to recite the information contained within for the anxious super-soldier.
“Native New Yorker. Career politician,” the notebook in Amy’s hands flipped back and forth and she read through the notes written down with blue ballpoint pen in the nearly indecipherable script that seemed to be a genetic quirk of all attorneys. “Very well regarded by his constituents. Staunch democrat…which is strange because of his ties to something as right-wing as a covert bio-weapons project.”
“Maybe the good senator is being blackmailed?” Mal asked, intrigued by the man’s background. “Could the other side be holding something over his head? Anything in your little black book give any indications of a skeleton in his closet?”
“Nothing popped out during my investigation. McGuinness has been married for twenty-three years to his college sweetheart. He has two children…a daughter studying engineering at Columbia University, and a son who…” the woman’s voice trailed off as she re-read what had been written down, her eyes lighting up in interest. “Now that’s interesting.”
When Amy failed to fill him in on her findings after forty-five seconds, Mal nearly jumped from his seat.
“What, woman?! What is interesting?” he demanded, nearly knocking their table over as he did.
“The son dropped out of college to join the air force…seemingly against his father’s wishes.”
“So? That’s a pretty common occurrence for rich kids looking to piss off their liberal parents. Hell, my mom hated the idea of my joining the army. She always said I’d wind up getting shot in some Godless foreign land…” It was Mal’s turn to trail off, realizing how ridiculous his statement was given his current situation. Amy let the comment go, although Mal wasn’t sure if it was out of kindness or because she was too wrapped up in her own realizations.
“Robert Thomas McGuinness was listed as ‘removed for medical reasons’ from his unit thirteen months ago. His plane had been shot down in Iraq and he was l
eft in a vegetative state.”
“Interesting indeed,” the wheels in Mal’s head began turning uncontrollably. “Those of us who survived the crash in Dahuk were all classified as ‘RFM’ when the spooks from Project Hardwired ‘recruited’ us.”
“Oh, it gets even better,” said Amy, downing the rest of her drink and waving at Holly for another round.
“How so?”
“David McGuinness approved the first round of funding for Project Hardwired less than a month later.”
“They used his son as leverage to help get Hardwired pushed through Congress. I wonder what happened to him,” Mal asked, more rhetorically than anything.
“No idea, but with the Senate currently in recess, McGuinness is back at his offices in uptown Manhattan through the end of the week.”
“That doesn’t give us a whole lot of time. Can you get me a meeting with Congressman McGuinness? I need to see him…find out what I can about the men who were behind what was done to me and my men. Find out what’s going on in my head and if it can be fixed.”
“I will do many damnedest, Mal,” she said, eyes blazing. “I’ve got a meeting with his office on Thursday.”
“Thursday?” gulped Mal. He counted the days off on his fingers. “That’s three days from now!”
Smirking, Amy retorted, “It’s nice to see the government finally gave you access to higher math skills along with the creepy robot arms.”
Ignoring her insult, Mal put his hand on her forearm. She would take it as a sign of someone looking for reassurance or connection. In reality it allowed Mal to monitor her heart rate and blood pressure with his cybernetic systems. He’d be able to detect the sort of subtle fluctuations that occurred when someone tried to hide the truth…when someone lied. “Amy, I have to ask…”
“What is it?” she replied, unsure of what was going on in the cyborg’s head.
“Why are you helping us? Helping me?” Mal finally asked, locking his hunter’s eyes on Amy’s own. “We barely knew each other in school and haven’t had any sort of contact since. Heck, from what I remember, you weren’t my biggest fan after I broke up with that hot redhead you roomed with. What was her name?”
“Carrie,” glowered Amy. Her pulse remained steady. “She was my sister and you never called her back.”
“Right,” sighed Mal as realization set in. All he remembered of the girl was that she had a tendency to use the word ‘like’ far too often and had declared that she loved him mid-coitus, two things that were not high on the list of things a teen-aged Malcolm Weir wanted to hear at that point in his life. “How is Carrie?”
“She still hates the hell out of you,” came the lawyer’s rather chilly reply.
“Right. Which brings us back to why are you helping me?”
The woman leaned back in her seat for a moment, staring down into the nearly empty whiskey glass in front of her, eyes seemingly lost in ice melting slowly into the amber liquid it contained. Snatching up the drink, she downed the last drops of it in one gulp and slammed the thick glass tumbler back down onto the table.
Face tilting up, Amy’s rich brown eyes grabbed Mal’s own blue ones with a serious look.
“Because what they did to you was wrong,” she responded. “You were a soldier…a war hero from everything I saw in your records. You trusted them to take care of you and they betrayed you in the worst possible way. It’s not right.”
Mal nodded, releasing his grip on her arm. She was telling the truth. “And that’s worth risking your job for…maybe your life?”
A half-smile crossed the woman’s face in answer.
“Well, that and I kind of have a thing for bald men.”
Shaking his head, Mal coughed, “I’m really sure I don’t want to know any more about that.”
Checking her watch, Amy removed a large wallet from her purse and slid out a pair of crisp twenties. She tossed the cash onto their mutual table and bobbed her head towards the bar’s front door. The place was getting crowded with the after-work crowd and, with their business complete, it was time for the pair to leave.
“I’ll contact you once I have a better lead on the Congressman’s schedule. Three days,” said Amy, standing and moving toward the door without looking back to see if Mal was following her.
Finishing his drink, Mal tossed out a pair of twenties of his own from the wad of stolen bills in his pocket and hurried to join his new comrade outside. By the time the cyborg was able to nudge his way through the bustle of people lining up to get into Clancy’s, his ‘date’ had already wandered half a block away. Her pace was slow enough for Mal to see her go, but too fast to be an invitation to join her. Their meeting was done and, for now, she was letting him know they were going their own ways.
“Hey, Ms. Jensen,” called Mal at the woman as she retreated down the evening street packed with Manhattanites eager to get home. “Thank you!”
Amy stopped and turned back to the cyborg with a twinkle in her eye “Try to stay out of trouble, soldier. I don’t want to have to bail you out.”
Flashing his patented ‘shit-eating-grin,’ Mal snapped to attention and gave her a parade perfect salute. “Yes, ma’am,” he snapped before spinning on his heels and marching off in the opposite direction.
For the first time in more than a month, things were looking up for the renegade cyborg. All he had to do was make it for three more days.
“What could possibly go wrong,” he thought as he began the walk back to his low-budget hideaway.
*****
Overhead, hidden by the lengthening evening shadows of a wooden rooftop water basin, a form garbed from head to toe in dull black watched the pair separate through green-lensed field goggles. Shifting in position slowly so as to avoid notice from those below, the field agent Malcolm Weir had named ‘Chuck,’ dropped the binoculars from his dark-skinned face to observe his quarry with eyes now free of the skull-embellished combat helmet.
A bold chin, strong nose, and full lips stared out of the dimming light of fading day. Direct orders from command or not, it took every bit of discipline taught to Chuck, better known as Field Operative First Class Kyrun Silva, to fight his urge to tear the fifty caliber Barret M82A3 sniper rifle from its sling on his back and open fire on the cyborg responsible for killing three men under his command. At this range, even with Weir’s enhanced healing factor, Silva was confident he’d be able to take his target without a fight.
Teeth gritting in anger while he activated the encrypted radio transmitter mounted on the side of his head, Silva opened a line of communication back to the mobile base unit flying at somewhere in the neighborhood of forty-five thousand feet above the city. The R135S Cobra Ball aircraft had been wheels-up and in the air within moments of Weir being identified in Manhattan. It monitored and coordinated the combat teams deployed in the area from its position just over the maximum flight ceiling of commercial aircraft in the area.
“The eyes in the sky have it easy…they never have to get their hands dirty,” Silva spit as the channel opened up from the boys up above. “Sky-High, this is Beta-One, over.”
“Go ahead, Beta-One. Report,” came the static-filled response through the tiny bud in the soldier’s ear.
“I have eyes on target Weir. Subject has exited an establishment in lower Manhattan and is now west-bound on Stanton near Essex. Should I maintain surveillance? Over.”
“Is the subject alone?”
Silva’s eyes flickered over to the stocky woman who had exited the bar with the rogue cyborg. After a brief verbal exchange between the two, she had departed in the opposite direction at a slow pace. The agent had taken a series of digital photographs of her before he had turned his sights back to Weir.
“Negative. He met with an unidentified woman for approximately thirty-six minutes. Uploading images now.” Once the transmission of data was complete, Silva repeated his question, “I repeat: shall I maintain surveillance on subject Weir?”
Empty static hissed in the operative
’s ear, taking his impatience up to eleven as he watched Malcolm Weir slowly disappear down the crowded New York street. The micro-tracer Silva had tagged the cyborg with was short range and not entirely reliable in the canyon-like avenues of Manhattan. It had taken the agent hours of endless grid-searching before he had been able to find Weir at all, and he hated the idea of losing the man once again.
A garbled burst of data sputtered across the radio connection.
“New target, Beta-One. Maintain watch on female.”
Silva couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Malcolm Weir, the man responsible for the deaths of nearly one hundred Project Hardwired operatives and the destruction of its headquarters, was in his sights.
“Repeat, Sky-High. Message not received,” snapped the furious military man.
“The female is the new priority target, Beta-One. Surveillance on Designate Cestus will be handled by another team,” responded the slightly annoyed operator’s voice.
Swearing to himself, Silva asked “Who is she, Sky-High?”
“Female target identified as Amy Kathryn Jensen,” responded the electronic voice from above. “Command says she is A-1 priority. Confirm.”
“Confirmed.”
Silva was in motion before his overseers responded to his confirmation and ended communication. He didn’t know who this ‘Amy Kathryn Jensen’ was or what she had done to attract the attention of the people Silva worked for, but if shadowing the woman allowed him to pay Malcolm Weir back for the deaths of his men, the agent was all for it.
CHAPTER 8
To say the news of Carl Anderson’s disappearance from the debriefing facility in Culver City was not well-received by the current head of the desiccated remains of Project Hardwired would have been an understatement. Upon receiving the news from his executive assistant fifteen minutes earlier, the middle-aged Representative Fountain had exploded into a rage that could only have been described as ‘epic’ by those who had the misfortune to witness it.
