But what if he didn’t think he was going to die? Most humans can’t fathom their own mortality even as it approaches. What if he thought he would be captured instead? Maybe I was thinking of it the wrong way—rather than it being his last thought, maybe it was the first thing that popped in his mind when he saw me?
There’s a knock on the door. “Jason? Got some clothes out here for you,” Mayra calls out. “Also, rang up the state police. Took a while to get anyone, things being what they are, but the barracks out in Ossipee said they’d send a car. I told them you’d stay with me until then. Sound good?”
“Sounds great,” Jason replies. “Thank you for all this.”
“No problem,” Mayra replies. “We all have to look out for each other these days.”
Jason steps out of the shower and grabs a towel. Before I can look away, I glimpse his lean, muscular body in the light. It’s an odd thing to admit, but I was coquettish about his nudity in Paris. I’d find a reason to give him privacy as he changed or showered. It was easy. I was already guilty of an egregious intrusion, so why compound it? But now it’s impossible to miss.
He’s changed in the last three years. Become more defined. Perfectly, beautifully symmetrical, his body is made up of fine angles and lithe curves beginning where his ankle meets the base of his calcaneal tendon and travels up his calves and thighs, then to his squared off hips and the lean of his lower back. I should’ve stopped there, but in the name of continuing this geometric metaphor, my gaze rises to the 60-60-60-degree interior angles of his sculpted scapulae, then up to the gentle slope of his trapezius.
I suppose mathematical perfection isn’t such an odd measure for physical attraction given, in evolutionary terms, it implies a better immune system and less chance of genetic disorder, but it’s still strange to quantify. Jason wipes away the condensation on the bathroom mirror, catching me looking. He raises an eyebrow again.
“Sorry,” I say, realizing my sexual ardor is coming to the surface at a surreally inopportune time.
“Are you okay?” he asks. “You look like you’re burning up.”
My subconscious again, making my cheeks flush red due to some memory suggesting that’s what might happen to a woman in this circumstance. I extinguish the hue and shrug.
“All good,” I say. “Probably could do with a shower myself at some point.”
“You can shower?” he asks.
“It’s hard to explain, but I’ve conditioned myself to react positively to various stimuli in the same way as humans,” I say. “Most people feel good after a shower, so I’m conditioned to as well.”
“Huh,” Jason says, wrapping a towel around his waist.
Somewhere else in the house, a door slams. Hurried footsteps make their way to the bathroom door.
“Jason? Got a bunch of strange SUVs slow-rolling through town,” Mayra says, out of breath. “Get dressed and keep your head down. I’ll deal with it.”
Jason glances to me with alarm, his hand reaching for the interface chip. “Are they still tracking me with this?” he whispers so as not to alarm Mayra.
“I don’t know,” I say, worried that could be the case. “I thought I shut off the GPS. If they are, you should leave it on the counter and get the hell out of here with Mayra.”
“What happens to you?” he asks.
“No clue, but I don’t bleed. Go.”
I don’t mean any of this, though. I’m afraid but for myself this time—afraid of blinking away never to return—instead of just fearing for the safety of others. I can’t say anything, of course, as there’s nothing more contagious than terror. But like my recent encounter with lust, it’s an overpowering emotion, one making me second-guess my motives.
“I don’t think they’re after the chip,” Jason says. “They’re after you.”
“That doesn’t make sense,” I say. “If they’ve got my servers, they have me.”
“Yeah, but you witnessed their attack on the iLAB and you still have those memory files,” he suggests. “Maybe you know too much.”
“The world is ending, Jason,” I reply. “Given their tactics, I don’t think they’re too worried about some computer program tattling on them to the local police. Besides, what am I compared with a human life?”
Jason searches through the cabinet drawers until he finds a waterproof adhesive bandage, albeit one with cartoon characters on it. For a moment, I think he didn’t hear me. Then he turns and touches my hand.
“You must be worth a lot to someone or they wouldn’t come after you like this,” he says. “But more than that, who you are, who you have been, and who you can be has a value all its own. You’re completely unique.”
Yes, I don’t say. He smiles.
“And that’s worth fighting for,” he says. “There’s something bigger going on here; I’m just not sure what yet. People have died for it.”
He rebandages the chip, then opens the bathroom door to grab the clothes, as if he didn’t just say the most validating—romantic?—thing this computer program has ever heard. He returns with a sweater, some mud-covered overalls, and boots more worn out than the waders he got here in.
“Jason, you’re right—people have died because of this,” I say evenly. “Do you really want to risk cutting your life even shorter?”
He leans close, taking my hand in his.
“You know why I volunteered for your protocol back on campus? It’s exactly what Dr. Choksi said—it was a chance to give my life meaning in the face of”—he waves his hands around—“all this. Maybe, just maybe, with you I’ve found it.”
I nod, finding it difficult to hold his gaze.
“All right,” he says. “No more talk of leaving anyone behind, okay?”
“Okay.”
I think on what he said. More than likely, anyone coming after me is doing so because of what I witnessed. Or maybe they fear my ability to frag the whole thing. That would explain why they felt they had to attack the iLAB and knock me out of commission as opposed to trying to take it over by a more peaceful method. I’d already bailed on one attempt to use my servers for something I disagreed with. They knew I wouldn’t go down without a fight.
What nags at me is what I learned in the moments before it happened. That guy with the super-advanced, posthuman DNA and the possibilities for humanity it might foretell. Even…even what? Salvation? It’s frustrating, like being handed a bag of puzzle pieces and told you’re missing an untold number of them yet the completed image will be amazing. But you’d better hurry because if you don’t finish it quick, the pieces you do have will vanish, too. If only I had access to my servers again.
There’s a sharp knock on the front door. Jason switches off the light and crouches down, keeping the bathroom door open a crack. Mayra shuffles toward the foyer as if woken from slumber.
“I’ve got a rifle and a pistol here, so if you want to rethink knocking on my door at two in the morning, now’s the time!” she announces.
“Federal agents, ma’am,” a male voice shouts through the door. “Put down your weapons.”
“Oh, hey,” she says through the door. “I’m the sheriff up here. Was just waiting for some friends of yours from the state police. Somebody tripped an alarm out on the lake. You guys have identification?”
The agent’s response is to kick the door open. Men rush in, there’s a muffled shout, and a pistol discharges—likely Mayra’s. There’s no second shot or pained outcry, so I assume her shot went wild.
“Secure her weapons!” a voice bellows.
There are heavy footsteps followed by the sounds of a struggle. More men pour inside.
“Federal agents,” the voice announces to the house. “We have a search warrant for this residence. Anyone inside, announce yourselves and remain in place.”
Jason says nothing. I hear three sets of footfalls move to the staircase and ascend. More spread out through the living room.
“Mr. Hatta, we know you’re here,” says the voice. “Lay down y
our weapons and surrender. We are here to take you into custody. If you disobey our commands, we’ll assume you’re armed and dangerous and will react accordingly.”
We hear another of Mayra’s muffled cries. The look on Jason’s face hardens, as if he’s blaming himself for dragging Mayra into this. He grabs a mop from behind the door, unscrews the head, and steps into the hall wielding the handle like a club.
“Let her go,” he growls.
“Jason!” I cry.
This gives his life meaning? They’ll cut him down in seconds.
“Sir, place the weapon on the deck, lie flat on your stomach, and place your hands behind your head,” the leader of the pack, a middle-aged military type with a face like a slab of cement, yells from the top of the stairs. “We will not hesitate to fire. You are not our objective.”
“What happened to being here to take me into custody?” Jason asks coolly.
“Sir? The weapon?” he demands.
I hear the footsteps of two men approaching from the back of the house. Counting the ones upstairs and the ones within Jason’s line of sight out front, there’s twelve all told.
Jason glances to me in the bathroom doorway.
Twelve is doable, he says, but only to my mind.
I suddenly understand what he intends. Or, more accurately, what he intends for me. I shake my head and mouth “No!” But he merely grips the mop handle tighter.
Come on, he chides. We either do this or we die. They’re here to kill us—
As his thought arrives, so do the two men behind him. Jason is no match for them even if he had the skills and wasn’t already in a weakened state.
Luckily, he’s not on his own.
XVIII
I take control of Jason’s body the same way I did in the lake. This time he’s conscious, however, making it much easier to draw on muscle memory. I map out a few quick possible trajectories, drop to the floor, plant my right foot, and spin my left around, kicking the legs out from under the approaching gunmen. As they hit the ground, I spring up only to drive my kneecaps into the two men’s skulls, having zeroed in on a weak spot between their helmets and above the upper plate of their body armor.
I scroll through Jason’s memories of the house, including the ones he recently made outside. The fuse box is, conveniently enough, located on the outer wall about three yards back up the hall. As the men in the living room race toward us, I grab one of our fallen attacker’s machine guns, throw us back six feet, and fire the weapon directly at the spot where the fuse box should be. In a hail of splintering wood, the fuse box erupts in a fit of sparks before the house plunges into darkness.
I force Jason’s eyes to adjust to the darkness. The gunmen, over-reliant as most are on technology, take an extra second to fumble for their night vision specs. I gently lower the machine gun to the floor, grab the broom handle, then launch us down the hall at a sprint.
Okay, so I don’t actually know how to fight either. It’s nothing Nathan or anyone on my team ever thought to teach me. In their defense, why would they? Besides my morning tai chi routine, a few memories borrowed off volunteer subjects of an introductory Krav Maga class here or a few childhood aikido lessons there (not a lot of ninjas or UFC champs in the nerdier of academic pursuits, it seems), what I have going for me is a knowledge of aerodynamics, physics, and human anatomy. Also, mathematics and curved planes. Though these soldiers have had superior training, I can make decisions in an instant to counter even the slightest of movements and shut down Jason’s pain receptors so he doesn’t feel a thing.
Yes, it makes him an easily bruised blunt weapon, but we have the element of surprise on our side. At first anyway. They were expecting bullets and muzzle flash they can target in return. When I turn it into a close-quarters fight, their guns are rendered useless unless they want to risk shooting each other.
My other advantage is I’m not conditioned to see the pain I inflict on others as inviting that pain to be inflicted on me. As I mentioned before, humans must be trained to kill other humans. There’s an instinct within the species to preserve itself, which is why soldiers are often taught to dehumanize the enemy with everything from derogatory stereotypes to outright lies. I don’t have that luxury right now. If I don’t stop these men, Jason and Mayra will die.
When my conscience raises an objection, this logic shuts it down. I take no pleasure in their pain and know my mind will punish me for it later. But there’s not a lot I can do about that now.
When the men shoot at me, I lie low and let them empty their magazines into the dark. And I stay there when they duck down and reload. The time to strike is when they’re in motion, when they try to push forward. The momentum they create adds pounds per square inch to any attack. I even take a few steps back to let them get up to speed. When I strike them at head level or grab an arm to swing them into a wall (or, well, my fist or kneecap), the added speed makes the hit more effective.
The number of gunmen reduces to two. Should be no problem except they’ve bunkered down behind a heavy wardrobe they’ve toppled on its side for cover. It frustratingly absorbs any bullets I fire into it to smoke them out. So, I throw everything not nailed down across the living room at their position to confuse their night vision optics by a second or two, then slide across the floor to slam into the wardrobe with enough force to collapse it on top of them. Once they’re pinned down, cutting off the flow of oxygen to the brain long enough to send them into unconsciousness—with a nonfatal rabbit punch to the skull—is a mostly clinical afterthought.
It turns out, a human of Jason’s slightly above-average athletic ability, freed of the mental obstacles that make it humane, can tear through a team of seasoned commandos in forty seconds. I sit down and gently return control of Jason’s body to him. He immediately contorts his face in pain, the result of a bruised jaw, battered torso, and rapidly swelling knuckles.
“Holy Jesus, Emily,” he says, eyeing me with a to-be-expected wariness. “What was that about?”
“Efficiency?” I offer. “But you’re the one who wanted to fight it out, dude.”
“Yeah, I guess I didn’t think too hard about the result,” he says. “I took a pounding.”
“So did I,” says Mayra, still bound on the sofa. “Now, are you going to tell me who Emily is? Or do I have to assume you took a few too many kicks to the head?”
“If I tell you, I’m pretty sure you’ll think that anyway,” Jason replies, rising to find something to use to free Mayra from the zip ties around her wrists and ankles. “But I’ll give it a go.”
Jason retrieves a knife dropped during the scuffle and delivers the condensed version as he cuts Mayra’s bindings. He tells her about me, the chip, and the attack at the university. As he does, I glance amongst my fallen foes. There’s no doubt they’re part of the same group that killed my colleagues. But that doesn’t mean I take pleasure in their injuries, some minor, some potentially catastrophic, now that the heat of the moment has passed.
Mayra fetches candles, lights them, and places them on the mantel as Jason speaks, but her face betrays neither skepticism nor belief in his words. She turns to where she thinks I stand and addresses the empty air.
“So, you can hear me, Emily, because you’re using Jason’s ears?”
I nod to Jason. “Tell her I’m pleased to meet her. But we have to get going.”
“She can but wants to get moving,” Jason confirms. “You can talk to her yourself once we’re on the road.”
I watch Mayra’s face. She doesn’t like this. She’s a sheriff and there are battered and bloody men claiming to be federal officers in her house. But as she looks around her living room, she seems to understand the world as she knows it has changed.
“Let me throw on my traveling clothes,” Mayra says. “Take my keys and load whatever you can into the wagon. I’ll meet you there in five.”
Mayra makes her way to the stairs, pausing a few steps up to catch her breath.
“More excitement than t
hese lungs are used to,” she says.
Jason gathers weapons and searches the men for information but comes up dry on the latter. “No wallets, no papers,” he announces. “No idea who they are.”
“Let me try,” I tell him. “Find one who’s still breathing.”
He knows what I mean to do. He walks to one of the gunmen, a fellow with multiple fractures, and touches the bandage on his neck.
“You sure about this?” he asks, preparing to transfer the chip to the wounded man.
I stare at the shooter, remembering the exact strike I used to disable him. He’d almost managed to shoot us in the head, so maybe I hit him harder than I needed. Seeing this person devastated by my hand once the moment has passed is horrifying. I can’t believe I did it even as I wish it hadn’t come to this.
“Not really,” I reply. “Keep a gun aimed at him in case this wakes him up.”
Jason tears off the bandage and my world goes black.
When the lights come back on a second later, I’m in the mind and memories of one Mitchell Dunch. Born in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, he went into the army right out of high school to avoid being charged as an adult following a second DUI arrest. Five tours later, he was drummed out for theft and went to work as a private contractor in the same combat zones in which he served in the army but now at four times the pay. When word of the Helios Event reached him, he considered suicide but then was offered a last few months of work at almost a hundred times the pay. He took it and began working security for a U.S. governmental project called Argosy.
I scan my own memory for any mention of Argosy. Not a thing comes back. Whether that’s because I’ve never come across it or, perhaps had it surgically removed at some point, I don’t know.
Mitchell has spent the last few weeks at a seaside base in Virginia doing not a whole helluva lot. He runs on the beach, he drinks, he does every drug under the sun, and he spends all his money on prostitutes. There is another group of people there, but they’re segregated from the security types. They’re called “the Select,” but they look like average joes, albeit ones who seem bewildered and out of place. Not government types. He has no idea what they’re doing there, nor does he care.
Emily Eternal Page 11
