Authors: David Berardelli
About ten minutes later, I heard the scanner at the other end of the room click.
The door opened. A tall, broad-shouldered man around fifty appeared in the
doorway. He wore a starched-collar white shirt with the sleeves neatly pressed
and a red tie whose knot showed no hint of a crease or wrinkle. He had the
unmistakable look of retired military.
I figured him for a full-bird colonel, maybe even a brigadier. His blond hair
was cut close to the skull. His small, deep-set blue eyes hardly blinked. His gaunt
cheeks had been shaved so closely they gleamed in the fluorescents. His strong
chin and muscular neck displayed discipline, leadership, and determination.
He stared at me for about thirty seconds, his gaze steady as he took in
everything from my hair to my dirty, sweat-stained shirt. Once he’d finished his
inspection, he closed the door and marched briskly down the aisle to my table.
“Alan Moss,” he announced in a clear voice.
“We know one another?”
“You do not know me, Moss. I know you.”
I strongly suspected I was about to be interrogated. I’d been in these
situations before and knew how these people operated.
“For a moment I was afraid my memory had jumped ship.”
“Your memory is fine.”
“How would you know?”
“I know.”
His statement made me suspicious. “Who are you?”
“That is not important—at least, not right now.”
I wasn’t in the mood for deception or fancy sparring. They’d brought me here
against my will. They could at least tell me what this was all about.
“Why am I here?”
“That will become evident.”
“Let me guess. I forgot to pay my taxes.”
He said nothing.
“I just remembered; there’s no more IRS. I guess I lucked out for once.”
His blank expression didn’t change. “Your file said you challenge authority
but nothing about you being a smartass.”
“File?”
“We have a current, up-to-date file on you, Moss.”
I’d been out of the military nearly twenty years. They had no reason to
continue maintaining my file. He must have been talking about something else.
“What sort of file?”
He didn’t reply.
“I deserve to know.”
Still no reply. A splash of heat flared up, nearly choking me.
“You stopped me at gunpoint, knocked me out then hauled my unconscious
ass here just so we could play stupid guessing games? Frankly, I’m
disappointed.”
“Everything was done for your own protection.”
“Knocking me out was done for my own protection?”
“You resisted.”
“I turned around.”
“Your orders were to get in the car.”
“I turned my head so I could see what these clowns were doing with…”
“You disobeyed a direct order.”
“I’m no longer in the military. How can I disobey a direct order? Besides,
only an officer can issue a direct order. I didn’t see any brass on the nutcase that
slugged me over the…”
“You were instructed…”
“By a psycho with a shotgun?”
“The people to whom you are referring are a platoon of specially assigned
military personnel.”
“They apparently didn’t feel the need to identify themselves. They were much
too busy pointing guns at us, shoving us around, and hitting me over the head.
One of them even damaged my van.”
“You were given a direct order to comply with their instructions. You are
lucky you were not shot.”
The more he spoke, the more he sounded like a high-ranking officer.
“I took my last direct order just before I got out of the Army. I haven’t taken
any since.”
“As I said, subduing you was necessary for your own protection.”
“How the hell did you know where I was?”
His steady gaze did not waver. “You cannot possibly be serious.”
His response revealed the obvious. Triangulation, GPS coordinates, cellphone tracking, satellite monitoring and, of course, their on-going
experimentation with microchipping the last five decades. I hadn’t forgotten how
devious the government was. The chip program they experimented with during
my military days had been strictly voluntary for personnel desiring three-day
passes. We were all given a full week to sign up.
Sensing a scam in progress, I didn’t add my name. As a result, I was
scheduled for immediate riot-control duty at Pakistani Brighton. Before being
deployed, I was given a battery of inoculations. One of the shots was injected into
my forearm. At first I’d thought it was for tuberculosis, but I could never find out
for sure. After my discharge, I tried several times to get a doctor to scan my
forearm but wasn’t able to find anyone to cooperate with me.
“I was chipped, wasn’t I?”
His silence told me the frightening truth. Despite the heat rippling up my
back, I fought to stay calm.
“We were told all chips would be removed or deactivated upon discharge.
Care to expound on that?”
“You happen to be government property, Moss.”
Government property.
That statement should have triggered another flare-up, but I suddenly realized
I no longer cared. Everything that had happened had obviously changed my
outlook.
He turned to the laptop behind him and punched some keys. The screen flared
to life. My old military photo covered the right half. A page of vital stats covered
the left.
“Your service photo.”
“I never did go for that cue ball look.”
“You were nineteen. A good soldier: disciplined, tough, intelligent, and
resourceful. What happened?”
“What the hell do you think? I got out and began living like a normal human
being.”
“You turned arrogant, self-indulgent, undisciplined.”
Their stats hadn’t stopped with my honorable discharge. They also included
the year I was married, the year my wife and I divorced, the three different
addresses we’d shared during our marriage, and my latest Orlando address, as
well as stats about my detailing business and employees.
“Something interesting?” he asked.
“Why don’t you people ever get your facts right? I’m six feet tall, not fiveten, and I’m no longer in the one-seventy category. Last I checked I weighed one
eighty-seven.”
He continued staring at me, his expression the same weird blankness you’d
expect from a department store dummy. It was eerie, as if he’d just switched
himself off. Then he blinked, and some color returned to his cheeks. “Any
pertinent questions other than height and weight issues? Are you not concerned
why we have your records after all these years?”
“I already asked why I’m here, but you didn’t give me a straight answer. I
figure you’re military, and the two apes behind me are also military. You’ve said
I’m government property, so I’ve got a pretty fair idea why I’m here. But right
now, I’m more interested in where I am.”
“I am sure you are.”
“And what this place is.”
“It would be much easier to show you.”
He punched a few more keys. The screen turned blank. He marched over to
the door then turned back to me. “Coming?”
I’d rather be leaving
.
“Do I have a choice?”
“You wanted to know what is going on.”
I jabbed a thumb at my escorts. “What about Tough and Tougher?”
“They do only what they are told.”
“What have they been told?”
“They will follow us until I say otherwise.”
“Nothing in their present instructions about killing me?”
“Not in their present instructions.”
I knew better than wrestle with that statement. This bozo wanted to show me
something; he couldn’t very well show me anything if I was dead.
I got up rather stiffly, my thoughts looping as I followed him through the
doorway.
I could tell the white walls of the well-lit corridor had been recently washed, the
drab green rug vacuumed. The residue of an ammonia-based cleaner permeated
the air.
There were three brown metal doors spaced at equal distances along both
walls, each with a standard doorknob but no markings.
“You never did say what this facility is,” I said. “Or where this is.”
“No,” he said, not missing a step. “I did not.”
I struggled to control myself. I would not get the answers I needed by losing
my cool. “You wouldn’t by any chance want to tell me where my friends are,
would you?”
He stopped walking and turned. “Friends?”
“I had two people with me when your roadblock crew got us. One of them is
a nurse. She’s slender and attractive, with brown hair and green eyes. The other’s
a former teacher. He’s around my age, maybe an inch taller than me, and at least
thirty pounds lighter. He has light-brown hair and blue eyes. You wouldn’t by any
chance know what happened to them, would you?”
His blank expression revealed nothing. “I gave strict orders to have you
brought here. My instructions did not include anyone else.”
“What about my friends?”
“I was told you were alone when you were brought in.” Then he turned and
resumed marching down the corridor.
The bastard was lying or had received the wrong information. The folks
communicating with him could be winding down. I couldn’t let myself think of
the other alternative.
“I wasn’t alone,” I said, catching up.
“You are now.”
It was getting much more difficult to control myself. I wanted to slap a
chokehold on him, or slam his face into the wall.
“I’ve dealt with people like you before. Why do you think I got out of the
service when I had the chance?”
He still didn’t lose a step. “What sort of people are you referring to, Moss?”
“People in authority—officers, politicians, bank managers, department heads,
CEOs—you’re all cut from the same mold. You play games with people’s lives
and treat them like they don’t exist, and when they try communicating with you,
you baffle them with bullshit. Truth and honesty aren’t exactly in your
vocabulary, are they?”
“You sound like an outsider, Moss. I find it hard to believe that only twenty
years ago you were one of our finest fighting men.”
“I just want to know where my friends are—and of course why you’re
operating a top-secret facility while the rest of the country has gone down the
tubes.”
When we were about ten feet from the end of the corridor, he turned and
gazed at me as if I’d just grown another ear. “What makes you think this country
is at its end?”
He was good, all right. And no different from the other bureaucratic morons
I’d dealt with in my military days: cold, calculated, and tough as granite. Tell no
tales. Give away no secrets. Don’t let the enemy know what you plan to do.
Distract then plunge, hard and quick.
“Are you trying to tell me it’s business as usual out there? That nothing’s
happened to turn this planet into a giant graveyard?”
“I have no idea where you are getting your information, Moss.”
“I’ve obviously been hallucinating. It’s been a doozy, too. It goes something
like this: There’s no power, no water, no cell-phone service, no Internet—no
communications of any sort. And to top it off, everyone I’ve stumbled across
during the past few days is dead, dying, psychopathic, or wandering around like a
zombie.”
“Interesting.” He motioned to the door. “May we proceed?” He waved his
hand over the scanner. It clicked immediately.
Damn. He’s chipped as well.
It only stood to reason; if they’d chipped enlisted men they’d certainly chip
NCOs and officers.
He pushed open the door and we entered a tiny alcove. The area, about the
same size as an elevator, made me feel trapped and helpless. My limbs turned to
ice as the door closed behind us. With the three men surrounding me, I felt even
more claustrophobic.
My guide clicked the scanner beside the door facing us. “You were not
hallucinating, Moss. Everything you have seen during the last few months has
actually happened. However, what you are about to see will explain everything.”
“You’re going to show me something that’ll explain why everything I’ve seen
doesn’t necessarily mean the world has ended?”
“As soon as we step through this door.” He eased it open, and we entered yet
another long hall. Walls of glass displayed the large open areas on either side of
us. They were well-lit and carpeted, with a desk, some filing cabinets, and a
couple of chairs.
A platoon of troops took up the rest of the two areas. On one side, soldiers of
both genders stood at attention in three long rows, all dressed in full camouflage.
I counted twenty in the front row. The back rows were about the same length.
None of them moved. All displayed the same face and body structure. In the
center of one room, a similarly dressed female stood on a podium. She quickly
fell forward and landed on her outstretched palms. Without pausing, she removed
her left palm from the floor, rotating the arm perpendicular to her body. She then
performed a set of rapid, one-arm pushups. The action was effortless and perfect.
From full extension she touched the floor with her nose then rose back up, her
right arm remaining straightened.
The woman completed twenty repetitions, switched arms, and did twenty
more, finally leaping to a standing position.
She nodded once, and the entire class repeated what she’d just done. No one
spoke or counted. Everyone moved in unison until the exercise was finished.
Then they all leaped simultaneously into the attention position and remained
perfectly still.
In the room on the other side of the corridor, men and women in police
uniforms stood at full attention in four long ranks. They also had the same face
and body structure. The demonstrators for this group, two men, faced each other
on a large rubber mat. Both were stripped to the waist, revealing lean, wellmuscled physiques. The one facing us gripped a large hunting knife.
The one with his back to us nodded.
His opponent attacked, his blade glistening in the fluorescents as it lurched
forward with blinding speed. The victim grabbed his assailant’s wrist so
incredibly fast I saw only a brief flash. It was done with deadly accuracy, twisting
and snapping the opponent’s wrist in one fluid, well-coordinated motion while
elbowing his attacker sharply in the jaw, pulling with his other arm and slamming
the other man to the mat. Still holding the attacker’s broken wrist, the victim
calmly grabbed the knife and sliced the tendons. The attacker didn’t flinch or
resist. There was no blood. The glistening blade remained clean.
The attacker leaped up from the mat and examined his mangled wrist. He
took it in his other hand, made a few adjustments, and closed the gaping wound
by pulling the skin together.
Damn. Strong, fast, resilient, intelligent … and indestructible?
The realization slapped me cold. The military had finally completed their
project. The day of the super soldier had arrived.
I considered it a mixed blessing that our enemies were all dead.
At least, I hoped they were.