Son of Cerberus (The Unusual Operations Division Book 2) (21 page)

In fact, many things were starting to feel more natural for her. As if having a sudden rush of confidence, she didn’t mind being authoritative. She had always been shy and figured she always would be, but now she felt the authority of decades that she could use to control people. She also felt skills, like something she had learned from a dream suddenly coming to mind. She remembered vaguely how to fly, that she had driven motorcycles, and even some skills that could save her life.

“Gelda,” she groaned. “You’ve got to try harder.”

Gelda looked stunned. The voice that came out of her was something she had not anticipated.

“You’re going to have to take matters into your own hands and do what you know is right.”

“But…” she tried to protest.

“Shut your mouth and listen to me. I am battling for control, but I fear that I am losing. I’ve never experienced anything like it. She is armored against me—lucid at all times. If you do not trust yourself and do what you know must be done, I may lose this vessel. That is not an acceptable option.”

Marcus couldn’t say he was upset to be limping. After last night, he probably deserved it. Julie had been gentle and kind to him and Marcus had fallen asleep in her arms hours after she had already passed out. In the early hours of the morning he had felt a sudden rush of anger. Though he had only been dreaming, it felt real enough. He started groping in his sleep, searching for an enemy to destroy.

That was when he found Julie. Grabbing her stomach in a tight clench wasn’t something he had intended. The little fat that could be found was quickly balled up in his tight grasp and Julie woke up yelling. When Marcus didn’t let go, she used her elbow to make him. A well planted, pointy elbow caught him in the thigh, startling him awake and groaning immediately.

Now, the small bruise that was forming reminded him he had to purge this mess from his mind as quickly as he could. There was too much going on in his life for Marcus to simply go to sleep without meditating. It had always served to put his mind at rest before and he felt somewhat stupid for not taking part in the small ritual before bedtime.

Looking at the white sand he kept in a glass container, Marcus made a promise he would use the sand and purge his bad energy soon. Unfortunately, today would not be the day.

He limped across the floor, totally cognizant of the fact he was going to miss his zero-eight hundred work call. He figured he wouldn’t be the only one, either, seeing as how his team had been somewhat scattered since they had come back home. He shot a quick text to his boss before heading into the kitchen to make some breakfast.

Julie had already left. She had important business to attend to at her law firm and unlike Marcus, she took her deadline today very seriously. Though she owned the firm, she was still quite important in its day-to-day workings.

Marcus flipped the television on as he cooked some eggs for breakfast. The local news was on, showing highlights from the night before.

The coffee Julie had made was strong and thick. He poured himself a tall mug and inhaled the fumes as he took his first sip. Today, thankfully, was not one of the many he had to rely on energy drinks to get going.

Cooking was next on his list. The crackling of butter in the pan smelled delicious. Soon Marcus was salivating at the prospect of eating his first good meal in days.

As he cracked his first egg into the pan, he looked up at the television on the wall in his living room. The flashing lights of police cars and ambulances were nothing new, but the headline caught his eye immediately.

“Police say high levels of electromagnetic radiation may be the cause of an ailment that caused nearly thirty people in a New York high rise to experience dramatic and terrifying hallucinations. As many as four are confirmed dead from self-inflicted wounds, while the rest have been taken to local hospitals and are currently under observation—”

Marcus didn’t need to hear anymore. His great smelling breakfast would have to wait. He dumped the half-cooked eggs in the garbage, dressed as quickly as he could, and headed for the door. Though the trip to the parking garage seemed as if it took Marcus an hour, especially with the two harassing phone calls he received on the way from Gregory and a miraculously cured Henry, he was in his car and off within minutes.

The entire department was in a buzz. People had been working very hard on this case and Marcus knew it. Each of them had small demands, wondering when they would hear more about the case. More than one person asked Marcus what he could tell them and just as many went away disappointed.

Apparently something had changed overnight.

“Glad you could make it,” Cynthia chided as Marcus headed into the briefing room again. It felt as if he had never left, honestly, and he was sure everyone else felt the same way.

“Henry.” Marcus patted his good friend on the shoulder. Though he looked tired and hadn’t shaved the scruff off of his face, he wore bright colors and a smile that told Marcus he was doing well. “Any news on Brenda?”

“Nothing new.” Gregory was the one who answered. “Stephen saw her through some surgeries last night and he says the outlook is still ‘iffy’. The doctors say she has a better chance, now that she’s lived through one night, but we shouldn’t get our hopes up.”

“Screw that,” Cynthia said. “I’m hoping with all my might.”

“Me, too,” Marcus said sadly. “She had better pull through this or I’m going to write her ass up.”

“What news do we have on the attack in New York?” Marcus was happy to hear about Brenda, but with the fact she might live having been established, it was time to get to business. “I saw on the news today that multiple people experienced the same thing?”

“You saw on the news?” Henry said kiddingly. “What a cute surprise. We have an extensive report already, Marcus. The same power pull like that witnessed in the old lumber mill was recorded, but this time it was in an apartment building in a nice part of New York.”

“What about the owners?” Marcus wondered. “Do we know who owns the apartment in question yet?”

The team looked to Gregory, who had apparently been hoarding the information until now.

“I’ll give you a guess,” he said, smiling as broadly as he had ever smiled. “It might surprise you to know that a man named Lambert Frederickson is on the lease. Not only that, but our kidnapping victim was spotted in the area. She was being accompanied by two men and a woman. They got out of there faster than a dog stealing a rib eye steak.”

“That’s two out of three,” Marcus said, rubbing his temples. “She was at the first incident and the third. I bet you anything she was also present at the second.”

“In the old abandoned mill?” Henry asked. “That wouldn’t make much sense.”

“It makes perfect sense, if that machine isn’t a weapon after all,” Cynthia managed to get the attention of everyone in the room. They all looked expectantly at her as she gathered her breath.

“If the machine wasn’t redesigned to be a weapon, then maybe they’re trying to do something to her, not everyone else. She was there on the boat and it’s safe to assume she was there in the apartment. Why wouldn’t she be present at the lumber mill? After all, that place was so far off the grid hardly anyone knew about it but two hikers. The same goes for the yacht. Maybe it was just an accident the yacht drifted into the harbor.”

“But what about the third time?” Though Gregory agreed with everything she was saying, he wanted to know the answer as much as they did.

“Maybe she needs the box to survive?” Cynthia shrugged. “I don’t know, but it definitely seems the two are connected. Coincidences like this are rare, if not non-existent.”

Everyone was silent. The old man that had helped them save the world was definitely connected to this ring of events now, there was no denying it. Marcus cursed under his breath.

“So…” Phillip said from the back of the room, his sunglasses covering his eyes like usual. “Are we going after this guy now or what?”

“Our newest member of the elite, Sheila, has some more information to disseminate before we start formulating a plan,” Gregory said a little too proudly. “I know we’ve been in this office a lot lately, but the most important thing we can do right now is gather any information we can. We are in uncharted territory and we can all agree on one thing; it’s going to get dangerous.”

“Get dangerous?” Marcus scoffed. “Like we haven’t been shot at, bombed, dropped down mine shafts, and threatened with vests made from C4 already.”

“I think this might change your mind,” Sheila said, standing up next to Gregory. Though the man towered over her, he backed up kindly to allow the tiny woman to present her findings.

“You already know we’ve been trying to figure out the correlation between the victims over the years,” she started. “Turns out it was right under our noses—we just didn’t know where to look. The Cerberus files brought some new information to light. It was information we wish we had never found, honestly.”

“Spill it,” Cynthia said grumpily. “What have you got?”

“A strangely documented change in one out of hundreds of victims,” Sheila said quietly. “One of the experiments worked. I guess I hadn’t got that far into the files yet, but last night one of my colleagues found the documentation. The procedure was done on a man that had experience a rather gruesome injury. It was a mine that tore his leg off.

“After the medics got him back to the rear detachment, a particular doctor oversaw his operation. Remember the doctor we were talking about yesterday? The one that changed after being bitten? Well, he decided to lower the juice on this one guy. Instead of shocking him, he just left the machine on for two hours straight.”

“The rest of the doctors didn’t understand what our man in question was doing, but it worked. They were all amazed and quite a few questioning papers were written about his method.”

“The guy with his leg blow off had to learn how to talk again, move on his own, and how to eat again. The doctors don’t know whether or not severe blood loss caused this change, but he was basically a brand new person.”

“So what’s that mean for us?” Henry said, somewhat astonished at the findings.

“Well,” Sheila said quietly, “this was the same man who bought the patents, helped purchase land in Nigeria, and who seems to be the very first case of a man with used-up organs. He died two years before the doctor—also a contributor toward purchasing the patents.”

The room quietly pondered over the information. No one had an answer, yet all of them were thinking something similar. It was Henry who broke the silence, rubbing his mutton chops tenderly as he thought.

“A parasite,” Henry asked. “A parasite that was introduced into the first victim through his injury and has since transferred bodies to keep itself alive? Do you remember when we went to see the girl? She had bandages covering wounds on both arms. The doctor said they had been doing something, intravenously, to her on that ship. I bet that has something to do with it.”

“The wounds also match up with our mystery man on the yacht,” Cynthia added. “He had puncture wounds on his forearms from what looked to be an operation of some sort.”

“The swap took place intravenously?” Henry asked out oud.

“How?” Cynthia asked. “This would be a huge discovery for mankind.”

“Scary,” Marcus said. “It would mean that a bacterium, or whatever might be transferring from person to person, is capable of snatching bodies?”

“But what about all the other cases you’ve uncovered with these wrinkled up, diseased-looking organs?” Cynthia said, bringing another light to the situation. “There have been dozens that you know about. What about the cases we’ve never heard of? There could be thousands, hundreds of thousands, of people that have gone unnoticed.”

“If this thing is transferring bodies to keep itself alive,” Gregory whispered, “who knows how long it’s been around.”

“A newly discovered organism,” Henry announced.

“That’s what it seems,” Sheila said, excitedly.

“Yes,” yelled Phillip. “Real life goddamn zombies, finally!”

“Let me play out a quick scenario for you,” Sheila said, obviously not amused with his joke. “You own a utility that allows drinking water for thousands of people to pass through it. Maybe this parasite can be injected in through that water. At the same time, you perfect one of those crazy machines. Maybe you make it capable of affecting an entire city. Unsuspecting victims drink the water, become unknowingly infected, and go about their daily lives. One day, when the time is right, someone flips the switch on one of those machines, making everyone who has ever been affected into something else. They might seem the same, but a few years down the road their organs give out and they die, all the while doing whatever it is they have been programmed to do.

“We could be looking at the world’s deadliest, most sinister weapon.”

“So shut it,” Gregory pointed at Phillip, who had taken his sunglasses off of his bloodshot eyes. “This is not a case of the walking dead. It’s much deeper, much more dangerous than we could ever imagine. If this is true, we’ve got more than some box to worry about. We could be looking at the most intelligent, the most deadly, the most frightening biological weapon ever conceived. Anyone might be vulnerable. Hell, we didn’t even know it existed until this very second. Even now, it’s just conjecture.”

“We need to get that girl,” Marcus said. “If she has been around every time that machine has been used
and
has some strange connection to the very first victim, then all roads lead to her. We find her, we get our answers.”

“But how?” Henry said. “New York has a couple dozen people living there; it might be hard to find one little girl amongst the other eleven.”

Everyone looked crossways at Henry. His grin showed that he had fully recovered from his near-drowning and had been invigorated by all this work.

“We’ve got a few options,” Gregory said, hoping he could still their anxiety a little. “We can wait for these guys in the NSA to find out more information, or we can reactivate without their knowledge. I have been given a government order to operate outside the bounds of conventional law enforcement—I think it’s time we use that order.”

“That’s what I’m talking about,” David said, smacking the table. His usually clean face was also full of stubble. “It’s time we step up and put these body snatchers down.”