by Cole, Jason
Chapter 7
As Kira walked through the door, she was greeted by Tank. As soon as the door opened just a few inches, he would jump up on the other side of it with his paws and shut it on her.
"Tank! Get back. Let me in already."
Since he weighed more than her, she was at his mercy as far as entering the apartment. Finally, he figured it out and backed up a few feet and sat down.
Kira was carrying four bags full of gadgets and gizmos. Every different type of motion sensor she could find, temperature detectors, night vision cameras, and infrared detection. Anything someone wanted to sell her, she bought it. No negotiating involved and no sale necessary. For the first time in a long time, she had something worthwhile to spend her money on. The most advanced security technology available. This crappy little apartment was going to be a modern-day bunker. The ultimate sleeper room. On the outside and on the inside, it would be a hunk of junk. But if anyone wanted to dare take her dog, she was going to know well before they even approached her door.
Tank was sniffing the bags, his big nose shuffling through the items inside. A few cameras fell to the ground as he worked his way towards the bottom.
"Get out of there, dammit!" She pushed with more force than she thought necessary, and it still only budged him a few inches.
"Don't make me give you something nasty, boy. There's plenty of vials in there with your name on them."
Something in her tone must have clicked, and he put his head down and walked away. The tail that he didn't have was tucked between his legs.
She started to mount the sensors, some outside of the building, some in the hallways, and the rest inside of her apartment. Some of them set off her phone, others were loud alarms. She didn't care though. She wasn't there to be friends with her neighbors, and if it helped her sleep at night, than it was all worth it.
The only thing she had to be ready for was the next mission. It could be any day now, any minute. In order for her to be on top of her game and ready for anything, she needed Tank to be safe and sound in this apartment. If there was an ounce of fear, she would worry about him and worrying could lead to death. There wouldn’t be another vine to save her life like the one in the rainforest.
As she screwed the various pieces of technology to the wall, different light bulbs, motion sensors that panned 270°, and everything else, her mind wandered. She wondered how those criminals were doing. It had been a while since she dosed someone with a nasty gene like that, and she wasn't proud. It wasn't the most elegant tactic, but inducing a few different psychological disorders was the only way for her to come in contact with an enemy and not have to kill them. It was the one viable solution that allowed her to complete missions and keep her conscience intact. She always wondered if she could create a fast acting muscular dystrophy or other debilitating disorder and leave their minds intact. As she started to feel bad about giving them a guaranteed future diagnosis of Alzheimer's, she reminded herself of why she was there. The more she thought about it, the more she realized that they got off easy with what she gave them.
"Oh! I almost forgot, buddy." She looked over and saw Tank sitting patiently, staring up at the countertops in the kitchen. "I guess you figured out my surprise."
She walked over and reached into the plastic bag on the counter. Pulling out two huge cellophane wrapped pieces of steak, she looked down and saw Tank drooling all over the floor. "Clean your mouth, mister. That's not very gentleman-like. We have to work on your etiquette."
She grabbed his massive metal bowl and filled it with water. She placed it back on the ground, but his eyes never left the meat. He could have been deprived of water for a week, and it wouldn't have mattered. His eyes were laser focused on those steaks.
She peeled back the cellophane from the meat, slapped them down on a big Pyrex glass, and laid them on the floor. She sat down next to him and pat him as he tore into the meat like a lion that had gone weeks without finding a meal.
"All right, all right. Chew, chew. Don't act like I don't feed you every single day. Geez Louise."
Just to make sure he knew that she was the alpha, she stood up, and snapped her fingers. "Tank, sit."
He continued to chow down for a few more seconds, and Kira waited patiently. After he swallowed what was in his mouth, he stopped eating, and sat down. His big puppy eyes, looked up at her, and he hit her with the cutest puppy face he could muster.
Her heart melted. She wanted to make him wait, but she couldn't. She crumbled like a spoiling parent, "Okay fine. I won't make you jump through any hoops today."
She snapped her fingers again, and he went back to chowing down. Stopping only to let out loud burps, and afterwards, he drank the entire bowl of water.
She went back to installing the security systems, and Tank made his way to embrace the oncoming food coma. She smiled as she saw the contentment on his face. It felt good to take care of him. It felt really good.
Kira was standing on a wooden ladder in the hallway. The rickety steps creaked under her petite frame. She was placing a motion sensor in each corner of the door frame. Each sensor was the size of a pencil eraser, and white, making them virtually invisible to the naked eye. As she used the needle size screw to mount the sensor she heard the shuffling again. The same sound she heard in the hospital and then again meeting the men in the park.
She was in the air, and as soon as her feet landed flat on the ground, she launched herself in the direction of the sound. She heard more of it, like feet brushing against the floor but never fully landing. Kira knew she had an innate ability to sprint and make very little sound, but this sounded even more advanced. As she rounded the corner, she looked down the stretch of hallway, and saw nothing. No kids, no animals, or doors being slammed shut.
Kira took a few deep breaths and tried to gather herself. This feeling of being watched was unnerving. The tip of the thin screw stabbed her palm as she clenched a fist out of frustration. She looked down at the droplets of blood forming at the puncture and knew things were going to change. With people trying to watch her and keep tabs on her, Kira knew she would need to prepare for anything. Perhaps catching them in the act would be the next piece to the puzzle, the first step down the path to answers.
Chapter 8
Ring. Ring. Ring.
Kira shot up from the couch. Tank slowly turned his head up at her, wondering why she woke him up.
Ring. Ring. Ring.
It was a foreign sound, and it took Kira a minute to figure out what it was. She had just installed so much technology that she thought it could've been any of the security cameras or sensors or bells or whistles. Who the hell knew? She probably should've thought of that beforehand. Maybe she could have wired them all to one notification system.
She looked over towards the kitchen and saw the phone on the wall. Was someone calling her?
Kira wasn't sure if she had ever received a phone call since she woke up in this apartment. If she hadn't been looking around, she would never have remembered she even had a phone. She popped up from the couch and walked over, grabbing it just in the middle of a ring.
"Hello?" Her voice was filled with confusion and wonder.
"Listen.” It was a man’s voice, with a sense of urgency and clear intent. “I don't have time to explain too much, so listen closely. I know who you are, and I know what you do. I'm not here to cause you harm or expose you. I'm also not here to answer any of your questions."
Kira stood there, cemented in place, with the phone held closely to her head. Her heart raced as she listened to the stranger talk. Another person who knew who she was? All of her life living in this apartment, no one had ever discovered her, now two people did so within a forty-eight hour window.
She began to wonder if the perceived life of solitude was part of the conditioning. Maybe she was just a cog in a machine, monitored, tracked, and kept on task. Nothing special at all, 3912. Another number, another frigging number.
"Hello?"
Kira didn't know what to s
ay, or how to respond. The man knew she would ask questions and already had refused to answer.
"I'm here," said Kira.
"This is going to be your first off the books mission. No promised reward, no money, just the fact that I can guarantee you will be helping innocent people."
She wasn't expecting that. Instead of money, the guarantee that she could help good people. The only problem was, how would she validate and verify that?
"And who's to say who’s innocent? Do you make that call? Am I supposed to take your word for it over the phone?"
Kira realized she couldn't just roll over and play nice, especially without knowing who the hell this was. The last two guys wanted to steal that cancer gene. This person could be even worse.
"If I wanted you to meet me in person, I'd be sitting next to you at that wooden round table behind you.” Kira spun around and looked at the table behind her. Tremors of fear radiated throughout her body. He continued, “If you think those silly cameras and detection systems would have worked against me, than you know less than I thought. All I can tell you is that if you start on this mission, things will begin to go your way. Clues will begin to reveal themselves, and the right people will start to take notice. You've been working for the wrong side, and I want to offer an opportunity to rectify it all."
The wrong side? Kira always had a sneaky suspicion that the majority of her missions were for greedy corporations and other twisted individuals, but there was no way for her to know for sure. Hearing a stranger over the phone even mention it, seemed to confirm everything.
"I know that you're dying to hear about your past, and where you come from. You want to know who you are and how you got here, but you cannot find out yet. It will do you more harm than good, and I know that doesn’t make sense. Try to be strong. There will be a time for everything, but for now you need to focus."
He sounded like he had answers, more answers than Kira could fathom. This voice, the person on the other end of the line, almost sounded as if he had dealt with other people in this situation before. There must have been others who wanted to know about their past, and who they were. Was she not the only gene thief?
Was there other gene thieves like her searching for their past?
"Don't get lost on me. There is a biotech company doing something that will change the world forever. Get out a pen of paper, and I will start to give you the details."
Kira ran over, grabbed her notebook and pen, and sat down. "Okay, I'm ready." Her hand was shaking so much she wondered if she could scribble down anything legible. She would settle for chicken scratch at this point. Her nerves were firing nonstop.
"Okay, there's a biotech company looking into genomic modification. We think they are trying to perfect the process of designing human life. From sperm and oocyte to fertilized embryo. The intel we gathered leads us to believe that this is the first move in a much larger, more sinister scheme. Recently, they've achieved a breakthrough, and I need you to help us stop it from getting out of hand."
Big corporations meant tons of armed security and that sort of security meant big risks. Kira was already beginning to wonder if she would regret this. The only two missions she had ever dealt with that were over a danger level of eight, all involved big companies who hired endless numbers of security details.
The thought alone made her wonder if this was simply a martyr mission; If she should hang up the phone and forget it ever happened.
"We will supply you with everything you need. If you are able to complete this, it will show us that you are almost ready. Almost ready for us to bring you in."
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