by Calvin Wolf
Chapter Five
1
Lucifer stumbled from the Camry, his emotions on fire. So many children hurting, and I am to blame. Tears streamed down his face. Everything I do hurts a child. The car I stole, what if a child is stranded? There could be an emergency! He imagined a young mother standing, agonized, in the parking lot, staring at where her Toyota sedan had recently been, a child at her side. They could be going to a doctor’s appointment. Dialysis. Breathing treatment.
He staggered out into the residential street, looking around at the carefully-kept homes and signs of domesticity. Although he had grown up in near-poverty in the Middle East, his extensive time in the U.S. meant that he was quite accustomed to American culture. No longer did he see the neighborhoods, lawns, and homeowners as alien. But for geography and time, we are one.
In that moment, he began to feel anger once more. If we are all one, then what keeps us separated and fighting each other? Why have I been at war with America for so long?
Money. Social class. Class warfare.
Staring at his hand, Lucifer pondered the monetary value of the nanotechnology that had allowed him to transfer his consciousness from one body to another, to augment any body beyond the normal limits of human reflexes, strength, and endurance, and to gift his brain with perfect recall and untold learning capacity. Billions of U.S. dollars, at least. Billions per what? Per person? All of a sudden, he remembered an old television show called the Six Million Dollar Man.
I am the six billion dollar man. Or sixty. With so much money at stake, to what lengths will men of power go to control it?
The former Syrian spy had no misconceptions about the ruthlessness of men and women who sought profits and power. He had seen thousands of lives wasted simply so one man’s authority could provide over more square kilometers of desert. People die over so little...how many will die over MIST?
As if a light had been switched on, the man once known as Adam Pastorius decided that MIST had to be destroyed, completely eliminated from the face of the planet. All of the nanotechnology had to be eliminated and its use prevented by the world’s corrupt power brokers. Otherwise, there will be class subjugation on a massive scale, with the power held entirely by a small elite that possesses Microtronic Infrastructural Symbiosis Technology.
2
The Texas Railroad Commissioner had skipped town, apparently, leaving the president’s men scrambling for leads. At the man’s Austin mansion, closet doors were flung open and beds were blanketed with tossed clothing. “He grabbed his family and split,” the U.S. Marshal said into his lapel mic. “Probably left as soon as he gave that phony info about the train tracks.”
“If he took off, you can bet that others are fleeing as well,” the president replied from the Oval Office. “Have your computer guys start looking for unusual spikes in flight reservations, hotel reservations, and other travel stuff involving destinations in rural areas, particularly out West.” As the president spoke these words, his own staff dove into online databases, fingers typing and swiping like mad. Within minutes, it had was determined that charter flights to the northern Midwest had quadrupled for the next twenty-four hours.
“Yeah, we’ve got major travel to the boonies going on,” a tech-savvy adviser declared after a period of intense data diving, his search fueled by intense rave music piped to his brain via earbuds. “Highway cameras reveal a big increase in out-of-state license plates heading west from the Beltway.”
Similar checks revealed private planes fleeing the area, flight plans hopping westward. When asked if he wanted the panicked politicos apprehended, the president demurred. “We don’t have evidence of a crime, or at least nothing that will stick. But try to track them, if you can.” The staffers began compiling a list of federal agents who could be trusted to track the escaping politicians and bureaucrats without sinking ships with loose lips.
As the two-thirty conference approached, the president demanded a preliminary list of those he could trust, as well as a second list of those he could not. “Find out who might betray the administration for a cut of whatever profits they might make off of MIST. Be honest. If shit’s gonna go down, which it very well might, I need to know who’s got our backs. If you have any inkling that someone might be willing to trade their integrity for dollars, put ‘em on the bad list.”
A deputy undersecretary looked up from his computer in the White House bullpen and raised his hand. When the president noticed him, the grizzled undersecretary asked how many dollars, exactly, he was talking about.
“Get me Dr. Kreitin on the phone!” the president barked, and a secure cell phone was quickly placed in his hand.
“What would be the market value for MIST, assuming someone got ahold of it?” the president demanded.
“Assuming they could guarantee its equilibrium inside the human body, achieving the effects we have seen with the original subjects, it could be worth-” Realizing he had the phone on speaker, the president pressed the screen and returned the device to normal function. Original subjects. The ones we launched into space. The number the scientist gave him was mind-boggling, but a rambling explanation of MIST’s effects indicated that the figure was not inflated. Upset, the president terminated the call after urging the scientist and his team to keep working. In the bullpen, everyone looked at the commander-in-chief expectantly.
“The total value would be in the hundreds of billions,” the president moaned. “Dr. Kreitin is confident that a human body infused with MIST at the proper equilibrium could enjoy superhuman capabilities, giving anyone on the Human Capital Market an astronomically high value.”
“Yeah, but there’s only so much of that stuff to go around, right?” an assistant department head implored. “And doesn’t it have a limited life span?”
“Absolutely,” the president replied, suddenly nervous. It feels like I’m forgetting something.
3
The man in black played the pleasant customer, just wanting some info about the thingy by the men’s restroom, and then snapped the teenage clerk’s neck when the young man stooped to inspect. Immediately, the former spook hurled the clerk’s body into the open restroom, where it collapsed in a heap on the dirty tiles. Engaging the push-button lock on the doorknob, the killer closed the restroom door. He pushed on it gently, mindful of his growing strength. Sure enough, it was locked tight. That will delay the discovery of the body.
Instead of cash or car keys, the man in black now sought dry ice. With the clerk dead and locked away, and the rest of the convenience store empty, the entire oversized cooler of dry ice - great for fishing! - was his for the taking. He grabbed a Styrofoam cooler from a shelf and filled it to the brim with the smoking ice, using his bare hands just to see if it would hurt. After a brief second of pain, the MIST neutralized his pain receptors and planted tingling energy under the skin of his fingers, allowing him to handle to dangerous stuff with impunity.
Cooler filled, he went outside to the car and transferred the MIST cylinders from the duffel, which had lost most of its chill, to the new container. As he drove away, he made a phone call.
“Let’s get this show on the road,” he said, feeling energized. He knew it was now or never. “I’ve got the stuff. Where do I take it?”
“Come to Fort Davis, the Hotel Limpia,” the woman replied, sounding gleeful.
Now that I know where you are, it’s time to flip the script. “Actually, that’s a bit out of my way. I’ll be at the Balmorhea State Park. Public, lots of people, all that jazz. I don’t feel like being cut down by a sniper outside the historic hotel up there in the mountains.”
“I assure you, you will be completely unharmed. We have plenty of use for you on our team,” the woman replied, feigning a motherly tone.
“As a lab rat? I don’t think so. If you need a human guinea pig-” He was going to tell her to shove something up her posterior, but his mind was on overdrive. T
hey need a human guinea pig...and there are others besides me. Get her a guinea pig.
“Then I can get you a human guinea pig,” he finished. “I know you’ve tried to get some already, but you failed, right?”
Silence on the line revealed that his assumption was correct.
“You failed to catch them, but they’ll come willingly to me. All you have to do is tell me who they are, and I’ll do the rest.”
His contact was quiet for several long seconds. “We trade the MIST first, and then you will neutralize the other hosts for an additional fee,” she declared.
“‘Other hosts’? We’re not infected with parasites,” he snapped. “That’s a big verbal gaffe, ma’am, and it hardly makes me trust you. Perhaps I should throw this stuff out on the side of the road? See what the MIST does when it gets inside the little bunny rabbits and coyotes? Or snakes and worms? You ever see Tremors?”
“I apologize,” the woman sighed. “I’m a bit tired, you know. It was a long night.”
“I’ll be at the state park in two hours. Let me give you the e-mail address to send the information about the ‘other hosts’ to. And include what you know about the two new ones, the state troopers. It’s all over the AM radio news.”
4
The professor roared through Raton Pass, noticing several rusting Humvees decaying along the treeline. In the eleven weeks since the crisis, much of the Home Guard’s military surplus equipment had been junked...but not all of it. Occasionally, old roadblocks and checkpoints could still be seen along highways and on vacant city lots, unclaimed and unwanted equipment left to the elements. Coasting down the I-25 slope into New Mexico, the big prof turned on the radio news and found himself in the middle of a report out of Texas. “Doctors at Midland Memorial pronounced state trooper corporal Kent Hewton dead at 9:37 this morning from injuries received in a one-vehicle accident. According to investigators, the Chevy Tahoe cruiser overturned last night on ranch road-”
Roger Garfield turned off the radio and announced that he needed to focus.
“Hey, hostages can’t commandeer the radio,” the professor grinned. “I’m a dangerous felon. You should be terrified.”
By now, the academic’s battery of the FBI deputy director had generated a nationwide APB for the esteemed former football player and police officer. Utilizing his extensive knowledge of criminality, the professor had delayed apprehension by stealing a random car from a Walmart parking lot and decorating it with a set of license plates from another vehicle. A smattering of bumper stickers hastily purchased with cash had further disguised the car. At the prof’s insistence, Garfield had helped with none of this. “The story has got to remain that I KO’d the deputy director by myself and kidnapped you,” the distinguished lecturer had explained. “This allows you to remain a free agent.”
Garfield’s agency-issue phone buzzed as they hit the outskirts of Raton, and a quick glance confirmed the nationwide APB.
“You’re a wanted man, professor,” Garfield sighed. “And there is no known motive for your heinous and violent crime.”
“Well, we better think as we drive, because I’m sure this conspiracy runs deep. It won’t take long before some of the conspirators assume we’re actually working together.”
“As a G-man, you know how they think, so I’ll let you be the brain trust. I’ll be on the lookout for some new wheels. It won’t take long for the APB to include this car.” Seconds later, they pulled off the highway and bounced along a pothole-laden main drag of the small town. It was still a sleepy late summer’s morn, meaning traffic was light and many businesses were closed.
A used car lot was sandwiched between two boarded-up restaurants, and the criminal justice professor indicated that it was time to switch out cars. “These places are closed, so there won’t be any witnesses. You stay in the car and I’ll flash my gun around, looking like an irate kidnapper. The security cameras will tell a great story.”
“Yeah, if there even are security cameras,” Garfield chuckled. “This car lot looks like it’s on its last leg. I’m skeptical about taking any one of these cars.”
Without another word, they bounced into the used car lot and screeched to a stop in front of the dusty and battered office. The prof leapt from the car, his right hand wrapped in his belt, and strode to the dilapidated glass doors. With his left hand, he waved around his personal .45 handgun, hoping to put on a show for hidden cameras. At the door, he threw his weight behind a powerful punch. While a modern glass door would have withstood the blow, even from a huge guy like the former football lineman, the old glass door of the auto dealership cracked.
“I’m gonna feel that in the morning,” the prof winced. He repeated the punch, and the glass broke. Reaching inside, he deftly unlocked the door. Though he tensed for the howl of an alarm, he was greeted by nothing but silence. Walking inside, he marched to the front desk and vaulted over it. After a moment of tearing open doors and drawers, he found the desired assortment of car keys, all labeled with a feminine script.
Below the keys, a sheet of typed paper listed a summary of each vehicle, indicating that a white Ford F-150 pickup, traded in by G. Romero, only had sixty-two thousand miles and had been serviced in town a mere two months ago. “Truck month it is,” the prof whistled, snatching the keys to the nondescript Ford. A white F-150 describes half the oil field and contracting company fleet vehicles in the country. It’s practically a Harry Potter cloak of invisibility.
He jogged back outside and pointed his gun at the windshield of the car that had brought them in from Pueblo. “Get out the car, motherfucker!” he yelled at Garfield, who rolled his eyes. “And don’t make me hit you again! I’ll knock you the fuck out!” Maybe the security cameras pick up audio, too.
Garfield played along, exiting the car shakily and holding a hand over one eye. Guy deserves an Oscar, the professor thought proudly. Using the gun, he gestured for the FBI agent to walk toward the white F-150 parked against the side of the building. The key fob unlocked the truck, and Garfield climbed into the passenger seat after another verbal tirade by his foul-mouthed kidnapper. Seconds later, after more gun-waving, the professor joined him.
“You talk like that in your lectures?” Garfield asked as the truck roared smoothly to life. Fortunately, no warning lights appeared on the dash. Without responding, the prof dropped the pickup into Drive and slammed on the gas. In a cloud of dust and leaves, they turned onto the main drag and aimed for the interstate.
“Only during finals week,” he finally answered. “I think I got most of that from the Friday movies. You know, with Ice Cube?”
As they headed toward the interstate, they passed a Colfax County sheriff’s deputy driving the other direction. Their stomachs clenched, but the cruiser did not deviate from its comfortable drift. In the rearview, they saw it pull into a mom-and-pop eatery for a late breakfast. A portly man in a khaki uniform exited the Chevy Tahoe and hitched his utility belt over his belly as he swaggered toward the front doors.
“Another home run for us. So, agent Garfield, where do we go from here?”
5
Lieutenant Watterson of the Midland Police Department grabbed the good doctor as he rushed out the back door of his office. “Looks like someone is trying to skip town,” the cop announced, pointing to the doctor’s twin duffel bags. The bags, one slung over each shoulder, were monogrammed with the internist’s initials. “Don’t bother trying to run. We already picked up the missus and your two daughters.”
“Am I under arrest?” the doctor asked nervously. “I have done nothing wrong!”
“Well, Hank Hummel just flew the coop. He’s pretty pissed off, you see. It turns out, his doctor had been lying to him for the past couple of months. Said he was free and clear of these nanocells...but that wasn’t right, was it? The nanocells were hiding in his bones.”
Flabbergasted, the doctor dropped the duffels. He almost asked how the h
ell the policeman knew about that, but caught himself at the last second.
“Gonna ask how I knew about that? Because it’s highly classified? I got friends in high places, doc. I helped with that little political crisis a while back, so they put me in the loop. And it’s all hands on deck today.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about. And who are you, anyway? I’m very busy.” Sighing, Watterson showed his badge and handed over a business card.
“Oh, and I know about the bone thing because I looked at your computer while you were grabbing your stuff. I may be old, but I still got moves like a cat,” the detective crowed. “You showed Hummel fake scans.”
A pair of younger detectives sauntered over from an unmarked patrol car. One was a tall and slender Hispanic man, while the other was a petite black woman. “Miss Kirk, what is the punishment for medical malpractice of this magnitude?” Watterson asked loudly.
“At least ten years, and permanent loss of license. Add in the possibility that these nanocells could kill Mr. Hummel, and you’re looking at twenty to life.”
The Hispanic detective announced that a second doctor, one with whom the duffel-bag wielding internist frequently golfed, had already been arrested for what had been done to Hector Rodriguez. “You know that name, don’t you? I’ll bet you do. Well, he’s a brother in blue, so we take a pretty dim view of what you and your golfing buddy have done.”
Crestfallen, his stomach sinking with despair, the internist felt sick. “I would like to speak to an attorney,” he said.
“Time is of the essence, sir. If you lawyer up and slow the chain of discovery, I’ll be most displeased. And when I’m displeased, I make your life a living hell. Right now, I want to know who you’re working for. Who told you to lie to Hank Hummel, cover up the existence of his nanocells, and fool him with false scans?” Watterson pulled out a slim digital recorder. “Talk, and I’ll push for no jail time.”
The doctor looked around. Aside from their tense quartet, the alley was empty.
“I’ll need protection. These are bad people. I only acted under duress,” the internist quavered. “Where is my family?”
“Safe and sound. I have them at a safehouse, not at the station. I’ve learned a little about political intrigue in my day. And these two detectives with me are clean. And if they’re not, I’ll kill ‘em myself.”
“Shut up,” the Hispanic detective sighed. “You been saying that since I passed the detective’s exam.” His colleague concurred, nodding her head.
“Can we go back into the office? I don’t feel safe in this alley,” the doctor shivered, looking around some more. Watterson pulled out his cell phone and texted someone. The reply was nearly instantaneous, and the aging lieutenant smiled. “Yeah, we can talk inside.”
6
Whitney Hummel lay on her bed, staring at the whirring ceiling fan. She was past crying, and in the stage of numb acceptance. She could feel the sensation of the tears drying on her cheekbones, making the skin tight. Michael will be okay. He’s tough. He’ll be okay. She didn’t know exactly what her son was doing at that particular moment.
Is he gone forever? Did that really happen?
Hank had left with hardly a word. At first, she had been furious. Beyond furious. Now, she saw an iota of what he had been talking about.
Could we live with him forever like that? Like what he was talking about? She had, surreptitiously, researched nanotechnology over the last several weeks. After he had begun acting strangely, despite having been told that he was just fine, Whitney had decided to take matters into her own hands. She had learned a tremendous amount, most of it frightening.
“He’ll come to his senses. He’ll come back.” He had never taken off like that before. Was that even him? Could it be the nanocells, the nanites, the MIST, the whatever-the-fuck you call it? For a second, lying still and staring at the fan blades, she wondered where her husband ended and the metal cells spread throughout his body began.
Do I want him to come back? She wondered if things would ever be like they were, several years ago. Back then, Hank had been a high school teacher. The world had gone through strange shifts, and her husband had been caught up in them. Hank had used guns, used violence. Terrorism and political intrigue had made him something more, but also something less. There was something inside of him, something relatable and intimate, that went away.
Now he had left, after the mother of all fights. He would not seek medical treatment, offered free of charge by Uncle Sam. Though she had screamed at him, mocked him, she believed him. They would not fix him. He would be in a quarantine room, behind armored glass, forever.
But he would be there, alive and safe, and she could see him.
Do I want to see him like that? Living in a bunker or on a military base, seeing my husband in a government hospital every day? Every week? In her mind’s eye, she saw her life unraveling in a crappy little apartment, her children growing bitter. How would Michael feel with a science experiment for a father? How will I explain this to Ava?
The dog hit the bedroom door with her head, thunking it open. Panting happily, the French bulldog bounded into the room, seeking to spread cheer. Behind her, Michael was holding Ava. “Mom? Let’s get something to eat,” he said, sounding concerned. “We’ll feel better if we get some food. I ordered some using your tablet.” Before Whitney could protest, Michael set little Ava on the bed next to her. A second later, the Frenchie leapt and struggled onto the bed as well. Michael sat on the bed and everyone edged and scooted together, feeling scared and forlorn. Hands absently petted the dog, who rolled onto her back and snorted and kicked gleefully.
“Doggie miss Daddy!” Ava declared. “Doggie miss Daddy!”
7
The Diplomat fielded lots of calls from his cabin. It was warming up outside, and the external temperature was mirroring his own tingling skin. You really do get hot under your collar, he fumed. The great diaspora had begun, but the administration in Washington had caught and detained some. People were starting to freak out, but the Diplomat urged calm through his many digital channels.
As birds chirped outside and a gentle breeze rattled some loose shingles on the cabin roof, the former State Department guru encouraged everyone to get an attorney on speed-dial. If everyone has been following directions, there is plenty of plausible deniability to go around, he texted. Even his own texts and emails, despite being highly encrypted, were purposefully vague and devoid of details.
He was looking forward to a jaunt toward the babbling spring down in the valley when an email came in from a contact he had to look up in his spiral notebook. The contact, a law enforcement official in Texas, was a bottom-tier member of their collective organization. HH’s doctor arrested. Squealing right now in his office. Have told others to bug out. How to proceed?
“Son of a bitch,” the Diplomat muttered. He called the matriarch and asked for a timeline on procuring the MIST. “Washington may have nabbed a piece of string and begun unraveling things. The doctor you bribed to mislead Hank Hummel? He’s spilling his guts to the cops. I think our man out there might be able to put things on ice, but he needs to know for sure.”
The line was silent for an uncomfortably long time. Despite her power and resolve, the matriarch could be known for excessive caution. “I guarantee they’re looking for the doctor’s contacts within your organization,” the Diplomat sighed. “In a few minutes, things will be set in motion that cannot be undone.”
“Putting things on ice will also put things in motion that cannot be undone,” the matriarch protested, her accent changing under stress. Occasionally, she sounded like a New York socialite, but anger revealed her decades of living in the South. “Maybe if they start unraveling that piece of string it will slow them down. They will take the time to dot their Is and cross their Ts.”
“Oh, it’s way beyond that, ma’am,” the Diplomat
scoffed. He explained how his contacts in Washington were reporting full-blown panic. “They are not underestimating the situation. In fact, they’re running hotter than they did on nine-eleven. The president is sending out loyal teams to rustle up those he considers traitors. Very socialist of him.”
“He’s a usurper,” the Diplomat’s former boss snapped, her voice outraged. “He was never elected by the people, only by an emergency session of Congress.” Amazed, the Diplomat listened to the fearsome matriarch give a length lecture on constitutionality. I think something has touched a nerve, he figured.
“Regardless of whether he should be president, he is the president. And he’s pissed, and he’s on the move. You’re paying me for my contacts and my advice, and right now my contacts and my advice point to one thing: Move fast. Feint, dodge, and sprint. The president won’t let bureaucracy slow him down.”
“But that’s against the law!” the woman hissed.
“Are you kidding me? We’re all guilty of high treason at this point. And anyone who knows that you’re running the show will blame you. You must know that.”
Furious, but now seeing clearly, the former Secretary told the Diplomat to order the hit in Midland and inform everyone to operate with great haste and momentum.
The Diplomat returned the contact’s encrypted email with a simple sentence ordering the situation to be put on ice.
8
Lucifer returned to the street he knew better than any other, perhaps excepting the dusty avenue on the outskirts of Damascus where he grew up. Years ago, he had been stationed there as a Syrian spy. After his death experience, he had regularly returned. He had made the man who lived across the street a fighter, a killer, a weapon. And now that man was also infused with MIST and needed to be destroyed.
Fire. Will fire destroy it? The MIST had made Lucifer’s new body a live wire, but his mind was not sharp. Was it because the body’s brain was that of an imbecile? Lucifer was not impressed with the body’s past, and anything more than flashes and glimpses would require him to direct his consciousness to the effort. He knew that distracting his consciousness from controlling the body would be dangerous. I could drive off the road. I could have a seizure. There was the slim chance that the brain could re-assert control and kick him out.
Eventually, the artificial neurons would replace the biological neurons, destroying them. This was among the many facts Lucifer had gleaned from the Internet during his time orbiting the planet. He wondered briefly about the death of his body’s original consciousness. The man died serving a greater good, he decided, putting it out of his mind. All that mattered was the mission.
He parked the stolen car in front of the house on the corner and climbed out of the dusty sedan. While his original body was well-known to any news junkie, this new form was anonymous. Perhaps a few Midlanders had seen a photograph of the officially-deceased state trooper on a news site, but most had not. Lucifer strode down Maple Street without fear of being recognized. To his right, he saw the house he had rented long ago. In another life.
Someone had repaired the shattered windows he had caused by throwing the president’s men through them. A blue minivan in the driveway indicated that the house had been purchased, likely by someone who did not know its amazing history. “It’s a girl!” proclaimed a pink sign hanging from the tree in the front yard. The August heat had killed most of the lawn.
Across the street, to his left, he saw the house he wanted. The cacti have grown since last time. Last time in the daylight, at least. I did not see them last time I was here.
Lucifer reached the driveway and touched the black SUV that was parked there. No car alarm blared. He knew, instinctively, that it was not Hank Hummel’s car. Is he away?
The bullet tore through his neck and sent him staggering to the cement.
Flight flight flight flight. The MIST wants out. I want out. I am the MIST. Frantically, Lucifer willed himself to remain inside the dying body. He lay still on his back, feigning death.
“A kill shot!” a man yelled in the distance. Booted feet ran toward him. He did not open his eyelids, yet he could see. Hazily, anyway. The particles see for me. Incredible. An exterior camera.
“Two to base, subject is down,” a different voice said, close. Still, still, be still. Be dead.
“Adam Pastorius is down,” someone said through the radio channel. “Begin retrieval procedures.”
9
Professor King and Dr. Cuentz, two of the original MIST administrators, landed on the White House lawn in an armored clone of Marine One. The two-thirty briefing had begun, and everything was in a frenzy. Flanked by a bevy of guards, the two aging computer scientists ran toward the stately mansion.
“Is all this necessary?” Cuentz asked over the din of the chopper, which was lifting off again. “You bet your ass!” replied a Secret Service agent, his gloved hand pressing his earbud deeper into his auditory canal. “It’s do-or-die time!”
The two distinguished nerds were led through a maze of hallways and pushed through a nondescript side door. Instantly, they found themselves face to face with the president himself. “Okay, let’s begin,” the wild-haired Vermonter said, skipping the pleasantries. Looking around, the two scientists saw a bank of high-resolution screens and clusters of cameras. On the screens was a veritable who’s who of the president’s administration. The faces were grim.
“Um, I prepared a drive,” King said, fishing an encrypted flash drive from his coat pocket. An aide deftly took the drive and plugged it into the side of a polished table. Seconds later, a three-dimensional image coalesced above the tabletop. King and Cuentz smiled, duly impressed.
“The latest holographic projection technology,” a second aide beamed.
Busily, King poked and swiped his way to the presentation he had been instructed to cobble together. The airborne images responded to his touch: moving, morphing, and disappearing as if they were being manipulated on a traditional screen by an old-fashioned cursor. Finally, the lanky computist reached his digital presentation.
“Give some background on who you are,” whispered Cuentz. King looked around and smiled awkwardly at the camera pods.
“I am professor Stewart King, of the University of Maine,” the man said with a self-conscious throat-clearing. “And I was recruited to work on the project known as MIST by the White House some five years ago.”
“And I’m Dr. David Cuentz, of UCLA,” his partner continued. “I was also one of the original scientists on the project.”
“What’s your specialty, Dr. Cuentz?” asked a grey-haired woman in an impressive Navy uniform. At the bottom of the screen it was revealed that she was taking notes on a clipboard.
“I am a board-certified psychiatrist, and I have a Master’s degree in biocomputing. I have fifteen years of experience working with neural implants,” Cuentz replied proudly. Realizing that he had forgotten to state his own credentials, professor King hesitantly explained his own Ph.D.s in computer engineering and physics. “Since two thousand four, I have worked in the area of nanotechnology, and have worked in quantum computing since two thousand nine.” He had left the University of Maine to work at the secret government lab at the University of Wyoming, but returned to the east coast three and a half years later.
“Why were you asked to leave?” the vice president asked from one of the screens. It appeared that the Kentuckian was on board Air Force Two. Despite seeing clouds behind him through oval windows, the image was steady as a rock. Must have great stabilizing software, King thought.
“The original MIST prototype was complete. We wanted more money to stay on, and they asked us to leave. We signed our nondisclosure agreements and left,” Dr. Cuentz explained. He gestured to Dr. King. “We actually took the same flight out of Denver.”
“So you do not know the current capabilities of MIST?” a man in a black suit asked, his voice disappointed. Judging b
y the pins on his lapel, the man was a spook or G-man of some high-ranking variety.
King sneered. “We helped architect the stuff. While our successors may have modified things, we have quite a good idea of what is going on. And we have been briefed as to what happened approximately eighty days ago. Judging by that data, plus all the data you have recovered since, we have plenty to go on.”
“It’s going to be a wild ride, ladies and gents,” Cuentz promised.
10
Six bodies lay on the ground next to the black Jeep Grand Cherokee, arrayed in a brutal semicircle. In the middle was a bald man, his torso and face riddled with bullet holes. Blood ran in rivulets down the sloping cement. Blood was everywhere.
“Jesus Christ, oh God,” gasped the first member of the retrieval crew. In his CBW suit, he had been approximately three and a half minutes behind the strike team. That was too much time, by far. Something had gone wrong. The two teams were supposed to be less than a minute apart, at most.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” yelled the second member. Through their earpieces, they could hear their armored truck’s external microphones picking up the sounds of neighborhood denizens crying, yelling, and frantically calling the police. A third member, swinging down from the crew cab of the specialized transport, held an electronic sensor.
“Maybe it has already dissipated,” someone suggested hopefully.
“The hell it did. It had five new hosts to choose from!” scoffed someone else. The truck was only meant to hold two bodies, which presented a big problem.
“But everyone’s still lying there. Maybe the head shot to the host killed it.” A gloved hand pointed at the bald man’s destroyed skull.
“They said it takes time for the MIST to take control of the nervous system. Until it gains control, the body is immobilized as the nanocells fight the neurons,” their leader said, exiting the truck. “We won’t be attacked by anyone, at least not right now.”
“Then we better figure out which body the MIST went into, fast as hell. I don’t want the bogeyman waking up and doing us like he did the strike team,” was the nervous response. Slowly, the quintet of men approached the bodies. From behind curtains and miniblinds, people were taking video and photographs. So much for secrecy, the team leader thought. This will be national news by five o’clock.
Three of the five men were heavily armed, and they unslung their weapons. Instead of assault rifles, they held automatic shotguns. Under their specialized suits, they had padded shoulders to handle the massive recoil.
“Anyone see The Thing?” someone asked. Nobody answered.
“The MIST definitely left the original host, so we can rule that out,” the leader said. “Focus on the strike team.”
Turning on their helmet cams, the team recorded its cautious approach. “HQ, feed us info. What do you read from our video?”
“Adam Pastorius fought like hell, even after a .308 through the carotid artery,” an electronic voice intoned. “We’re trying to use the surveillance network to pull up video on this neighborhood.” The nationwide hidden camera network, which had been deemed unconstitutional, had never been fully shut down. Occasionally, operators still used the network to surveil cities with mobile avatars like a virtual reality video game.
“Negative on the replay; this sector’s got glitches,” the metallic voice said after a few tense seconds. It was hard to do routine maintenance on a surveillance system that was continually exposed to the elements and was not supposed to exist. “You will have to scan each body manually.”
Any fear trembles hidden by his bulky CBW suit, the man with the sophisticated sensor array walked over to the first prone body. Slowly, he waved the sensor over the man. The man groaned and twitched. Instantly, the sensor-wielding man jumped back as his compatriots raised their guns.
“What happened?” the prone man asked, his voice weak.
“You tell us,” a gun-wielding member of the retrieval team snapped. “And don’t move.”
“You think I’m infected with MIST,” the prone man moaned. “I’m clean, guys. I’m clean.” He tried to move, and the shotguns were brought closer.
“Don’t move!” someone yelled. Another prone man began to twitch, and one of the three shotgun-aimers swiveled his boomstick toward the new target. “Stay still!” the soldier ordered. For the first time, the retrieval team became acutely aware of the strike team’s weapons lying scattered on the cement. Using a booted foot, the tallest shotgun-holder kicked a submachine gun away from a limp hand. Just in case.
“Guys, you’re going crazy. I’m clean,” someone said, trying to sit up. “Just took a hit to the head.” A second later, a fourth man began to stir.
The retrieval team did not know what to do, and panic quickly set in.
