Dictionary.com defines zombie as a noun. It says that in voodoo, “it is a body of a dead person given the semblance of life, but mute and will-less, by a supernatural force, usually for some evil purpose” or it is the supernatural force in itself. It also defines the term as a “person whose behavior or responses are wooden, listless, or seemingly rote” such as an automaton. It can also refer to a person who is eccentric or peculiar; refer to a snake god worshipped in the West Indian and Brazilian religious practices of African origin, a tall drink of multiple rum and fruit juices. Finally, that source states that it’s Canadian slang for an army conscript assigned in World War II to home defense. World dictionary states all of those and in addition, it is a “piece of computer code that instructs an infected computer to send a virus on to other computer systems.”
Common culture has expanded that to a person who acts under the control of someone else. Recent times have described it as an infection either chemically or supernaturally takes over a small population, starting with a core group and expanding through contamination of bite or sometimes even scratches, exchange of blood, inhaling of fumes, or merely dying in the wrong place. Zombies tend to crave flesh, especially brains. Known ways of stopping zombies tend to be destroying the monster’s brain or burning the body, depending on the source of the information.
Raleigh Iago Coulter had researched zombies. He had recorded in his chronicles every citation. He had seen each movie. He had even scoured old newspapers and police reports dealing with strange happenstances from Haiti, Dominican Republic, Creole centers of the United States, Tribal religions of Central America, South America, and Africa. He had traced the science and the not so science. That is how he had found information on Javier Cortez. That is how he had formulated his hypothesis of how to use Tasha’s system to perfect the Zombie. The Defense Advanced Research Project Agency had been funding an almost $5 million program to reverse engineer the brain.
DARPA’s research as well as a few biotech scientists have been theorizing the use of injecting nanobots into the bloodstream in order to study and monitor the human brain one day. He had read about it in a medical research journal, but further research had revealed that with the backing of the AMA and DARPA, a government grant had been given to a few select scientists to actually attempt it. Coulter had attempted to be on that team. His request had been denied.
Instead, he chose to hire a team. Three men, no names. They broke in. They stole a few nanobots, “Take two, they’re small!” he had said it… they didn’t laugh. Screw them. No humor. He had them copy the files. Then he dismissed them and paid them off, well, two of them. He hired the third man, and called him Thelonius, to trail the other two to make sure his path was clear and no one checked up on him. He nicknamed the other two Basey and Dizzy.
Coulter then hired a scientist. He found a Cal Tech nerd named Leroy Roberts who likes to quote some guy named Sheldon from some mainstream comedy show. He’s been cranking away at multiplying some of the bot designs. Roberts boasted a PhD, but he talked like a leftover from Comic-con. Coulter was coming close to rethinking the hiring.
He would leave Roberts at the lab with the instructions of having more nanobots made or having tests done on Blake, and he would return to find Roberts streaming episodes of the favorite TV show on the computer or blasting his iTunes of a Bare Naked Ladies song. Really? He was paying for this? Really?
Today had been no different. He had left to have a discussion with Cortez about the librarian. He returned to find Roberts screaming “Zoom! Zoom! Zoom!” and drinking coffee, just like his icon on the screen. Coulter inhaled and exhaled slowly. When would Cortez be ready to play doctor again instead of espionage/special ops.
“Roberts!”
“Sir… You’re back!”
“And what do you have for me?”
“The girl… um… patient zero… is stirring.” He gave a goofy grin. “She’s pretty.”
“Is that really all you have?”
“Um… the Blake zombie is beating his chains again. I gave him a cow brain.” Roberts smiled, “He doesn’t like the cow brains… bovine must be too beefy.”
Coulter shook his head. Picking up his iPad, he logged into his email and started thumbing through resumes. There has to be someone more qualified. Or less qualified and easier to work with.
“Oh… and boss!”
“Mmm?”
“I replicated the nanobots! They’re adorable! And right up to specs! I was just celebrating with coffee and my favorite Sheldon episode. I love when he thinks he’s the Flash.”
“Of course you do.” Coulter read the next email. The words played through his head… both what Roberts had just said and what the email was stating. “Roberts?”
“Yeah, boss?”
“Did you just say you replicated the nanobots?”
“Yeah! Wanna see? I have my own little nano-planet forming. I think this happened on Next Generation… or maybe it was one of the Twilight Zones…”
Coulter cradled his tablet against him and walked over to where Roberts was now hovering over a 5 gallon tank with several test tubes hovering in some sort of gelatin. He peered into the tank. He had placed the first tube in the tank himself. There was now three other tubes beside the first. “I don’t see it. You could have just put a few more tubes in the tank.”
“No… look… look.” He pulled one of the other tubes out. “They’re nano… you can’t see them… not without a microscope, otherwise they wouldn’t be able to do the ‘Innerspace’ journey.”
“Innerspace?”
“Tuck Pendleton? Played by Dennis Quaid? Don’t you see movies?”
“Do you do anything but?”
“The article I saw on these guys says they were planned for sending into the bloodstream, like they did with the shrunken ship with tuck Pendleton in the movie.”
“Roberts…prove to me that there are more than the original nanobots.”
Roberts carefully carried the test tube to the microscope. “It’s ok guys… he’s going to love you when he sees you. You’re beautiful… yes, you are.”
“Roberts?!?”
“Sir, they’re sensitive!”
Coulter stared at Roberts. Roberts dropped his almost ever present smile. “Here, sir.”
Coulter leaned in to look at the screen. “They look different.”
“You asked me to upgrade them to your specs. I had to color them so we could tell them apart. They’re ready for you to use. You’re going to inject them into the girl… right? Did I get them done in time for you to inject them into the girl?”
Coulter smiled. He had not counted on Roberts coming through. He had been ready to wait for Cortez to get his butt in there and start being scientific. But this left other options. This left other options. But he couldn’t start with patient zero. He needed to test that the nanobots wouldn’t mess things up. “Ready Blake.”
“Blake? But what about…”
“Get Blake.”
“But he’s rather ripe.”
Coulter was about to object. Then he thought about it. Blake was a good starting place. He’s a good control for the experiment. Coulter needed more. “You may actually have a point. But not for your reasoning.” He looked at Roberts, knowing he’d find that blank expression, the one that Coulter despises so much.
“So what do we do, Boss?”
“You put your babies back in their tank.” Coulter stood up and strutted to his desk. “I am going to make a phone call.” He hit the speed dial. “Thelonious? It’s time to get the band back together. Can you arrange for more than a trio? Six plus you? Seven is good. Is there anyone you’re figuring is most expendable for a special mission? Call him King when you introduce him. The others can be Ellington, Parker, and Armstrong.”
Coulter hung up the phone. A broad smile crawled across his lips. He knew exactly what he was going to do. Maybe it would take a bit longer for Cortez to take care of that librarian… maybe he’d get his kicks with her first… soothe itch or two… give Coulter some time.
A hand draped over Coulter’s shoulder. “I haven’t seen that smile in aaa-ges.”
Coulter rolled his eyes. She was still here. “What do you want, Gert?”
“I want to spend some time with someone who had a little more stamina… and a little less foil on his head.”
“I don’t have time right now. I have to plot on how to make this fly seamlessly.” Coulter regretted ever having picked up Gert. She had been at Cal Tech when Coulter had found Roberts. Apparently she really liked being around intelligent men. It was funny at first… though weird. She would launch into ecstatic fits and moans if someone talked of scientific theory, Einstein’s hypotheses, or chemical compounds. For a while, it was game to see what ramblings of chemical compound recipes or loosely joined phrases of physics would send her into euphoria. After the first ten times or so… it was old. She wouldn’t leave now. She said she stayed to keep Roberts company, but it never took too long for her to realize he was back at the lab.
“You think… you plot… I’ll play…” Her hands traced down his chest.
“You’re distracting me.”
“A compliment from you?”
“It’s not a compliment. It’s an annoyance.” He was really going to have to get rid of her… maybe he could infect her. Maybe he could feed her to Blake or to patient zero.
Her hands trailed to his belt as her arms draped lightly over his shoulders. “You need me…” she whispered and it’s as if she knew she needed to defend her place. “I got him to stay on task today. He kept trying to put in that Star Trek movie with the Genesis Device.” Her hands began to unravel his belt. “I got him to work. I told him he could reward himself with watching Big Bang Theory if he could succeed.” Her voice was gravelly… He toyed with letting her continue with her desires. She should be rewarded for actually doing something useful.
“No… not now… Gert,” He pulled her hands from his belt and refastened it. “You go play with the nerd-pet. I’ve got to do stuff.” He picked up the phone again. “Cortez, take your time. I’ve got some more tests to run. Take her for a spin… if you’d like. I’ve got some more help coming, maybe you can instruct them to ship out the man from the hotel.” He watched Gert stretch her bare legs under the lab coat and caught a flash of skin from her stomach. It hit him that she was only wearing a bikini under the white coat with pastel chemical stains.
She twisted her finger into her shoulder length raven hair. Her walnut brown eyes gazed at him for a moment before she turned. “Leroy… Leroy… Want me to find my Leia costume?”
“Oooh, yes! We wantz it so!”
------
“Chief, this is Dizzy and Basie. Here we have Ellington, Parker, Armstrong, and our newest member, King.” King smiled at the man that Thelonious called Chief. He wanted to make a good impression on the new boss.
“Basie, you’re a girl? I didn’t realize you were a girl last time. Did you change?”
“Nope… have always been a girl…” Basie smiled and King watched the chief ponder Basie again.
“Huh… ok… I guess it doesn’t matter.”
The one called King wasn’t sure if he was more upset to be known as the newest member or to be code named King. It wasn’t a bad name. He was a great musician and fit in with the rest of the code names. It just occurred to the one called King that his name was the only one still being used by the original. Did anyone else see the pattern? These were all Jazz greats. Wasn’t anyone else curious why a codename wasn’t picked for him of another Jazz great who was already passed on. B.B. King still performs in St. Louis. Why not Davis? Or he would have been ok with Holiday or Rainey, even if they were women. Being called King made him nervous.
He was really Tyrone Hill. He had grown up in Cincinnati. He had been sneaking into bars since he could remember, not to drink, but to hear the music. If he couldn’t get passed the bouncer, he’d sit on the fire escape. It was anything to get to the music. It’s what he loved. And fireworks. He loved to blow shit up. Music and Munitions.
However, what he loved… was out of reach. He could name a song…from three notes sometimes. He could recite lyrics without a thought. He breathed music. However, every time a social work therapist, a school music teacher, or community church liaison would hand him an instrument and try to get him to play, he couldn’t remember what he had learned from his last lesson. They tried to teach him to sing, but his voice just couldn’t hold. He’d do anything to be on the stage… just once…
Tyrone was nervous now. He had been on many jobs. He was used to weird rules and not knowing any details. It was better that way. If you know stuff, and something goes wrong… or something goes right, you’re a liability. If you know nothing… you’re not only possibly going to get out of it alive and with pay, but possibly secured for another venture.
The man called Chief was walking around, giving a tour. Tyrone was doing his best not to get too nosy. He noted the entrances. He noted the windows. He noted the doors. He noted where he would put the C-4 to blow those doors wide open if he needed a way out in a hurry. They were supposed to do security for now. Apparently a big hit was coming up. Something about delivering a crate. Something about another doctor.
Then a sort of Hispanic looking guy walked in. He was lighter than Tyrone, but only slightly. Tyrone tugged at his longest dreadlock and tried to look like he couldn’t hear anything. Unfortunately he could. He was trying so hard not to.
“Dr. Cortez, are you impressed? You can use them as you see fit, except one… I have a special mission for one. They’re good… I’ve worked with these three before.”
“Coulter…”
“Ah… now they know my name…”
“You should of told me they didn’t, plus… I thought you said that wasn’t your name…”
Tyrone began making mental la-la noises. He was hearing too much. He had a bad feeling that things were going to go badly. He leaned against a shelf in the lab and tried not to look at the contents on the shelf, but he felt something slip off the shelf from his shoulder’s contact. He turned to catch it and caught the title, Voodoo in the Caribbean: An Anthropological Study. Ok... there’s a book of Voodoo? Seriously. He looked at the shelf only to see where to put the book, but he saw more than he had hoped to see. Death of a Brain, Loas of Voodoun, and the Journal of BaronSamedi were on the same shelf. Samedi… Voodoo priest who communed with loas… powerful spirits.
The words of his grandmother filled his mind. She had been born in Algiers. She had told him all about the Voodoo and Hoodoo, the religions, the cults, the beliefs, and the superstitions. He was barely able to sleep at night as a kid thanks to her. She would cast copper on the floor to find which way the spirits would want her to go when she reached a need for a decision. She would bind herbs and trinkets in bags and stick them in his and his siblings pockets to protect them. He would tell his mother about the monsters in his closet, but it was always his grandmother who would come and check. His friends told him that their parents would prove there were no monsters so they could sleep. His grandmother would list off the types of monsters that would hide in the closet and the different ways to repel them. He’d found that a quarter-stick of dynamite bought at the fireworks store could repel a lot of things. Eight of them tied together could repel a lot more.
His fear had driven him through school. His fear had driven him into the army, in hopes of learning how to defend himself. His fear had pushed him… kept him from working the nine to five job, kept him from keeping legit. He just couldn’t face normal people and smile when he knew what could be in the closet… what they didn’t know they needed to guard themselves from.
Tyrone was ready to quit. He didn’t need any money this bad. He looked at his leader, Thelonious. Thelonious was watching Coulter and Cortez as they talked. How was he going to explain he needed to leave? He had seen too much. And they all knew it. He would look like a … a narc.
“Sir…Thelonious?”
“What is it, King?”
“Am I needed on this? I think I’m getting the flu…”
Thelonious turned and regarded him. “Something wrong, son?”
“I have a bad feeling, sir.”
“Grow a pair. You’ll be fine.”
Tyrone shook his head… even the chief had no sense about him. He watched as Cortez turned and gave them all a cursorily glance. Then Cortez turned, “Alright… all but King, follow me. We’ll go set up shop.”
“You’ll be fine, kid.” Thelonious patted him on the back as he walked off.
Tyrone stood there. He watched the rest of the men walk off after Cortez and swallowed. He started to lift his foot as if to follow, even though the order was for him to stay. He heard a girl giggle and turned in time to see a girl with dark hair and a gold bikini dash from a pale guy in a lab coat and horn rimmed glasses. She could have out run him… she could have kicked his butt, but instead she feigned weakness and he scooped her up. It was odd to see such a lithe girl in the arms of the average Joe nerd. He gave a smile and rooted for the underdog as the lab guy started peeling off the bikini.
“They’re always good for a floor show… You can watch them later, if you’re feeling up to it.” Coulter’s voice was even-toned and eerie. “I mean only, if you’re not to overworked or worn out from your task.”
Tyrone swallowed again, “What is my task?”
“I need you to come here and sit in this chair.” Coulter pointed to something that looked like a dentist chair. “Go ahead. Lie back. Take a deep breath… I’m just going to give you an injection and then I’ll have you run a bit on this treadmill… to get your blood flowing… and then I’ll run some tests on the results.”
Tyrone looked at Coulter. He didn’t look evil… but he did have Voodoo books. “What kind of injection? What kind of tests?”
“Don’t your type work on the rules of not knowing much of what’s going on so that you can avoid being collateral damage in the cleanup?”
Tyrone inhaled and held his breath. He crawled into the chair. “Yes… we stand by that, sir. We don’t want to know.”
“Good. Let’s begin.” Coulter began to bring straps up over Tyrone’s arms.
“Is this necessary?”
“Mr. King, this is for your safety as well.”
King didn’t believe him, but it was too late. He was already strapped in. He looked down and flexed his hand. He hoped he would live to see 26. The thought occurred to him that really had to rethink his career choice. He watched as Coulter strapped his legs to the foot rests. He closed his eyes so as to hide the wide eyed look he knew he was wearing.
He felt cold metal trail up his right arm. He forced his right eye open to see bent scissors cutting up his sleeve. “Um… my shirt?”
“You’ll be compensated later. Trust me, after I’m done… you’ll not want for any luxuries, such as fine clothes or money.”
Tyrone closed his eyes. Coulter’s words should have given him contentment. The man was going to compensate him… Wait, he didn’t say he’d compensate him… Coulter had said he’d feel no wants for luxuries… Was that an odd way to say he’d be paid? “I guess you pay your guinea pigs well?”
“They get rewarded well as I see fit.”
There was a whiny chuckle… from across the room. “My handsome Jedi, you’ve saved me…” followed the mirth.
“That geek… he’s got a girl?” Tyrone looked at Coulter. He tried to see the human behind the googles.
“Yes, and it eludes him that she’s playing Leia and he think he’s Luke… And he forgets, that bikini is worn after Luke knows Leia is his sister.” Coulter shook his head as he focused on the needle he was flicking as he pointed it toward the ceiling. “Don’t get me started… that side of the room has all sorts of wrong going on.”
Tyrone chuckled. “Yeah... No kidding.” He closed his eyes again as he watched Coulter level the needle at his arm. The needle slid through his skin, Tyrone flinched. He tried to breathe. The air still flowed in and out of his lungs. He opened his eyes to see Coulter setting the needle down. Coulter picked up another one. “Doc, how many are we going to have?”
“Three… then you run… and then we’ll see.”
“Three little shots… I can do that… so far, so good.” Tyrone swallowed as Coulter tapped the needle and inserted it a quarter inch from the last target. Over half done. He didn’t feel any different. He was breathing a little faster, but maybe that was just the nerves. He felt the third puncture into his arm. “Almost there? Right, Doc?”
“Yep. Almost there.” He heard the third syringe as it was replaced on the tray. “Mr. King, please join me at the treadmill.” He felt the bonds being released.
“Yes sir.” Tyrone got off the chair as soon as the last strap was released. It felt good to be free again. He had to admit, it was silly to think he was going to perish in that chair. This was a man of science, not some crazy bad guy in a movie.
“If you could please step on the treadmill and start running at an even pace. The point is not to overwork yourself but to get your heart rate up.”
“Yes sir.” This may actually be the easiest cash he’d earned. Tyrone smiled and started to beat feet. He started at a slow jog and built up to a steady beat. He heard his feet hit the ground. Pound. Pound. Pound. Pound. He heard the pounding build an echo. The echo coursed through his body and thundered in the back of his ears. Pound. Pound. Pound. Pound.
“Mr. King… you may slow your pace now…” Tyrone obeyed… his feet slowed… the pounding did not. “Take it to a walk, Mr. King.” Tyrone slowed to a walking pace. That’s when he realized the pounding was his heart, thundering in his ears.
“Chief? Mr. Coulter? Uh… I think… my heart…”
“Lay down on the chair again, Mr. King.”
Tyrone nodded and crawled on the chair… “I think my heart…” He heard his heart begin to slow. He exhaled in relief… “That was scary…” His heart continued to slow on his next exhale. “Do you need me to describe any…”
“No, Mr. King. You’re doing just what I need you to do.”
Tyrone exhaled again as he watched Coulter refasten the straps. He exhaled again. Coulter looked up at him. “You’re doing fine, Mr. King.”
Tyrone exhaled again… it occurred to him that he didn’t remember inhaling. The thundering was subsiding… “Doc?”
“Mmm?”
Tyrone wanted to ask what was going on and when he was going to come out of it. He tried to form the words… The thundering was very hushed… more like a rumble now. He felt like exhaling, but he was afraid to let the air go, in case it didn’t come back, so he held it in.
It then occurred to Tyrone that Coulter didn’t need to pay him if he was dead. There was really no reason for Coulter to leave him alive. Tyrone looked at Coulter.
“Mr. King… You’re doing fine… it’ll all pass soon.”
----
Tasha stood in the room. There were no windows. The walls were a grey white. The tile was off-white with beige speckles. There was no furniture. There was a dim light bulb overhead, as if someone had put a 40 watt bulb in place of a 60 watt to save energy. She could hear giggling and squealing. She hadn’t really seen anything outside of this room. She hadn’t remembered many details of her surroundings since the hotel room. All she remembered was Corner putting down the gun instead of defending her.
Was she mad? Maybe. Was she disappointed? Very. Was she surprised? No. Men have not proven reliable. They tended to promise rainbows and provide puddles of mud. Raleigh had come through in that only she had not expected much from him. Why did she expect Corner was going to be different? Why should she expect Corner to rescue her now?
Tasha sat down. She tried not to think about the hunger. She had felt like she was about to have the best steak dinner of her life back at the hotel. She tried not to think about the fact that it wasn’t going to be steak… or what Cortez had said about her being dead. He seemed to know more than about what was going on than any of them. She wished she could have gotten more out of him before they had been turned over to Raleigh.
She hadn’t see Corner for hours now. She hadn’t seen anyone but the ferrety looking lab guy actually. He had come in a couple times, sneering down his nose and sniffling when he talked about needing to bring her out to Coulter for more tests. He acted like he was tough, but his eyes shook when he looked at her. He was afraid of her. He was afraid she was going to jump him. He smiled and looked tough, but he was a twelve year old boy when he looked at her.
“Tasha.”
Tasha looked around. There were no shadows in the room except her own. There was nothing but an empty 10 x 10 tiled room and a dim light. “I must be going crazy finally.”
“Tasha, dear.” Tasha looked to where the voice had come. A paler woman stood in the room, smiling weakly at her.
“I’m going crazy. It was bound to happen… Coca Cola, gravel and hail, brains for steak.”
“Tasha, it’s all going to be alright.”
“Momma?”
-----
“Mr. King. You’re an excellent patient. We’ll be wrapping this up soon.”
Tyrone tried to exhale. There was no air.
“I’m just going to turn on the display here.” Coulter turned and flipped on a large monitor beside Tyrone. “Now, Mr. King, let’s watch those nanobots I injected dance through your bloodstream and into your head. Then I can compare what their response is compared to what they should be in a human.”
Tyrone tried to blink.
“What you’re feeling is the last of your life as it fades, just in case you wanted to know.”
Tyrone wanted to ask why? He wanted to inhale.
“Mr. King, you’ve been a big help. You’ve proven to me that the nanobots are safe to use on patient zero. You’ve given me a baseline of information for the comparison when I do inject these little fellows in her.”
“Is it important to make his last minutes frightful?”
“Roberts, I’m just wrapping up business. Look, your darlings are working.”
“Yes, sir. That’s my beautiful little babies.”
Tyrone looked up and saw the nerdy guy looking down at him. His hair was standing on end in places. He tried to ask for help. The guy looked away.
There was a muffled, “I must be going crazy finally.” It was a woman’s voice, and not the one in the Leia costume. Both Coulter and the nerd looked at the door. Tyrone tried to look, but his head wouldn’t move.
“Is that patient zero?” Coulter regarded the door a few moments.
“I think so.”
“I’m going crazy. It was bound to happen… Coca Cola, gravel and hail, brains for steak.”
“Who is she talking to?” Coulter’s face tightened. “Shut up!”
“There’s no way anyone’s in there.”
Tyrone watched as a grey veil fell over his eyes. As his mind tried to follow where the veil had come from and what was going on in the room that seemed so distant, he heard the woman’s voice simply say, “Momma?”
----
Thelonious was no fool. When Coulter had hired him, he had asked for anonymity. When Coulter had given stated his name, Thelonious had told his new employer that he was going to assume that the name was a hoax. Then Thelonious had done his research. He had gathered up every report card and every traffic violation Coulter had ever had. He gathered it all up and made copies. One set he put in a bank. He gave the key to his daughter.
The other copy, he mailed to himself and left it at a post box, with a letter detailing what he was into. Thelonious was no chump. He was not going to disappear into the night at the crazy orders of his employer. Especially not for a heist on a government building. He had worked with the ones Coulter called Dizzy and Basie many times. He could count on them. So when the heist went well and Coulter asked for him to keep tabs on his team, Thelonious knew he didn’t need to. He did it, not to protect Coulter’s interests, but to protect his own. He wanted to make sure that nothing ‘suspicious’ occurred. He wanted to make sure that he was able to work with Dizzy and Basie again.
It had been a while since he had heard from Coulter. He was almost ready to believe it was the last time he’d hear from him. He had hoped he could believe that some day. Sadly, it wasn’t true. As Thelonious walked through the large warehouse that held a laboratory and several holding cells, Thelonious pondered the fate of his newest team member. He didn’t like letting one of his team go, especially the kid. He had hoped it was just a dangerous task, and not a guaranteed death. However, he didn’t trust Coulter as far as an infant could throw him.
He now found himself following a man named Cortez on a tour of the warehouse. His men following him, fanning out to fill the hallway. He studied the long hallway, trying to gauge the dimensions of the warehouse.
Cortez cleared his throat and broke Thelonious’ attention, “You’re called Thelonious?”
“That is right.”
“Do you know what you’re getting into?”
“Most likely not.”
“You know you left the kid to die?”
Thelonious dropped his shoulders. He had hoped for better. “I was hoping that wasn’t the case, but knew it was likely.”
“Thel?”
“Basie, I’m sorry. I had no choice.” He hadn’t had time to recruit another and the kid had begged to join. He had tried to talk him out of it initially. He now felt like a dog for telling the kid to ‘grow a pair’ when the King had gotten nervous back at the lab.
“Can we go back?”
“Mr. Dizzy, I don’t think there’s an easy way to do that.”
“So, what’s going on here, Cortez?”
Cortez turned and looked at Thelonious. “You’re seriously asking?” He folded his arms. Thelonious watched Cortez’s eyes scan the walls of the part of the hallway they were in. Was he looking to see if they were alone or being recorded?
“It’s none of my business, of course.”
“It is our business. We just lost one of our own!”
“Dizzy… the less we know, the longer we’ll live. You know the rules.”
Basie turned towards Cortez, “You know what’s going on… Yet you’re still standing here… Why?”
“I have my reasons.” Cortez turned and walked down the hall. He slowed his steps until the others fell in line.
“Cortez?”
“I have nothing to say at this time.”
“We need to leave now!” Basie hissed into his ear.
“We have a job to do.” He looked at Basie as she scowled.
“We should go get the kid and bail. This is going to be the end this time.”
“You say that every time you get the willies, Diz.” Thelonious did his best to not let on that he agreed with Dizzy this time. He watched Cortez. The man walked like a professional. He was packing, too. Thelonious knew there was more to him than a PhD. He assumed the man had a degree, since Coulter had called him doctor once. Coulter was more likely to drop the title than to add it gratuitously. What was an armed doctor doing working with a man like Coulter? Thelonious pulled out his phone and typed the message, ‘research Dr. Javier Cortez.’
“We frown upon contacting the outside world while on the job, Thelonious.”
“I understand. It won’t happen again.”
Cortez turned and looked at him. “See that it doesn’t.” Cortez started to turn and then he stopped. The mysterious doctor pulled him over to one side, away from his crew. “Thelonious… I know who you are. I know your name. I know where you come from. I never walk into any situation without knowing all of the pieces and all of the players. I have many sources.”
“Your point, Cortez?”
“If you and your team want to get out of this alive, you need to follow the rules, you need to be up front with me, and you need to keep in line. It’s a tightrope you are walking and you need to keep your balance. Most importantly, you need to keep on your guard and watch. If I think I can help you, I’m only going to give you the sign once.”
“Why are you saying this? How do you know that I’m not going to turn you in to Coulter myself?”
“I told you, I know who you are.” Dr. Cortez folded his arms in front of him. He locked his jaw. His dark eyes simmered.
“And who are you?” Thelonious put on the most dubious look he could muster.
“You don’t get to know that. You need to be ready to act. Do you understand?”
Thelonious studied the doctor’s face. He seemed sincere. He was actually possibly trying to help them. Thelonious looked over his team. They stood there, looking at him. Each member had special talents. Each one he had hand selected. They still seemed to trust him, even though he had just admitted to knowingly leaving the kid to his doom. He needed to minimize losses.
“Do you understand? I’m not going to ask again.” Cortez grasped his arm hard, shaking him slightly. He heard at least six hands reach to various guns. He smiled. They still have his back.
“Dr. Cortez, are you familiar with the saying, ‘if the snake feels cornered, the snake will bite’?”
Cortez chuckled. “I’ve heard it said.”
“You give the sign… I won’t miss it.” He knew when he needed to look for an out. He knew it was possible he would not get all of his team out even when the time was right to strike out. But he owed it to them to do his best… He knew they had to try, even if a few fell as they fled. Thelonious was no fool.
------
(26,273 words)
Tanya writing...
Common culture has expanded that to a person who acts under the control of someone else. Recent times have described it as an infection either chemically or supernaturally takes over a small population, starting with a core group and expanding through contamination of bite or sometimes even scratches, exchange of blood, inhaling of fumes, or merely dying in the wrong place. Zombies tend to crave flesh, especially brains. Known ways of stopping zombies tend to be destroying the monster’s brain or burning the body, depending on the source of the information.
Raleigh Iago Coulter had researched zombies. He had recorded in his chronicles every citation. He had seen each movie. He had even scoured old newspapers and police reports dealing with strange happenstances from Haiti, Dominican Republic, Creole centers of the United States, Tribal religions of Central America, South America, and Africa. He had traced the science and the not so science. That is how he had found information on Javier Cortez. That is how he had formulated his hypothesis of how to use Tasha’s system to perfect the Zombie. The Defense Advanced Research Project Agency had been funding an almost $5 million program to reverse engineer the brain.
DARPA’s research as well as a few biotech scientists have been theorizing the use of injecting nanobots into the bloodstream in order to study and monitor the human brain one day. He had read about it in a medical research journal, but further research had revealed that with the backing of the AMA and DARPA, a government grant had been given to a few select scientists to actually attempt it. Coulter had attempted to be on that team. His request had been denied.
Instead, he chose to hire a team. Three men, no names. They broke in. They stole a few nanobots, “Take two, they’re small!” he had said it… they didn’t laugh. Screw them. No humor. He had them copy the files. Then he dismissed them and paid them off, well, two of them. He hired the third man, and called him Thelonius, to trail the other two to make sure his path was clear and no one checked up on him. He nicknamed the other two Basey and Dizzy.
Coulter then hired a scientist. He found a Cal Tech nerd named Leroy Roberts who likes to quote some guy named Sheldon from some mainstream comedy show. He’s been cranking away at multiplying some of the bot designs. Roberts boasted a PhD, but he talked like a leftover from Comic-con. Coulter was coming close to rethinking the hiring.
He would leave Roberts at the lab with the instructions of having more nanobots made or having tests done on Blake, and he would return to find Roberts streaming episodes of the favorite TV show on the computer or blasting his iTunes of a Bare Naked Ladies song. Really? He was paying for this? Really?
Today had been no different. He had left to have a discussion with Cortez about the librarian. He returned to find Roberts screaming “Zoom! Zoom! Zoom!” and drinking coffee, just like his icon on the screen. Coulter inhaled and exhaled slowly. When would Cortez be ready to play doctor again instead of espionage/special ops.
“Roberts!”
“Sir… You’re back!”
“And what do you have for me?”
“The girl… um… patient zero… is stirring.” He gave a goofy grin. “She’s pretty.”
“Is that really all you have?”
“Um… the Blake zombie is beating his chains again. I gave him a cow brain.” Roberts smiled, “He doesn’t like the cow brains… bovine must be too beefy.”
Coulter shook his head. Picking up his iPad, he logged into his email and started thumbing through resumes. There has to be someone more qualified. Or less qualified and easier to work with.
“Oh… and boss!”
“Mmm?”
“I replicated the nanobots! They’re adorable! And right up to specs! I was just celebrating with coffee and my favorite Sheldon episode. I love when he thinks he’s the Flash.”
“Of course you do.” Coulter read the next email. The words played through his head… both what Roberts had just said and what the email was stating. “Roberts?”
“Yeah, boss?”
“Did you just say you replicated the nanobots?”
“Yeah! Wanna see? I have my own little nano-planet forming. I think this happened on Next Generation… or maybe it was one of the Twilight Zones…”
Coulter cradled his tablet against him and walked over to where Roberts was now hovering over a 5 gallon tank with several test tubes hovering in some sort of gelatin. He peered into the tank. He had placed the first tube in the tank himself. There was now three other tubes beside the first. “I don’t see it. You could have just put a few more tubes in the tank.”
“No… look… look.” He pulled one of the other tubes out. “They’re nano… you can’t see them… not without a microscope, otherwise they wouldn’t be able to do the ‘Innerspace’ journey.”
“Innerspace?”
“Tuck Pendleton? Played by Dennis Quaid? Don’t you see movies?”
“Do you do anything but?”
“The article I saw on these guys says they were planned for sending into the bloodstream, like they did with the shrunken ship with tuck Pendleton in the movie.”
“Roberts…prove to me that there are more than the original nanobots.”
Roberts carefully carried the test tube to the microscope. “It’s ok guys… he’s going to love you when he sees you. You’re beautiful… yes, you are.”
“Roberts?!?”
“Sir, they’re sensitive!”
Coulter stared at Roberts. Roberts dropped his almost ever present smile. “Here, sir.”
Coulter leaned in to look at the screen. “They look different.”
“You asked me to upgrade them to your specs. I had to color them so we could tell them apart. They’re ready for you to use. You’re going to inject them into the girl… right? Did I get them done in time for you to inject them into the girl?”
Coulter smiled. He had not counted on Roberts coming through. He had been ready to wait for Cortez to get his butt in there and start being scientific. But this left other options. This left other options. But he couldn’t start with patient zero. He needed to test that the nanobots wouldn’t mess things up. “Ready Blake.”
“Blake? But what about…”
“Get Blake.”
“But he’s rather ripe.”
Coulter was about to object. Then he thought about it. Blake was a good starting place. He’s a good control for the experiment. Coulter needed more. “You may actually have a point. But not for your reasoning.” He looked at Roberts, knowing he’d find that blank expression, the one that Coulter despises so much.
“So what do we do, Boss?”
“You put your babies back in their tank.” Coulter stood up and strutted to his desk. “I am going to make a phone call.” He hit the speed dial. “Thelonious? It’s time to get the band back together. Can you arrange for more than a trio? Six plus you? Seven is good. Is there anyone you’re figuring is most expendable for a special mission? Call him King when you introduce him. The others can be Ellington, Parker, and Armstrong.”
Coulter hung up the phone. A broad smile crawled across his lips. He knew exactly what he was going to do. Maybe it would take a bit longer for Cortez to take care of that librarian… maybe he’d get his kicks with her first… soothe itch or two… give Coulter some time.
A hand draped over Coulter’s shoulder. “I haven’t seen that smile in aaa-ges.”
Coulter rolled his eyes. She was still here. “What do you want, Gert?”
“I want to spend some time with someone who had a little more stamina… and a little less foil on his head.”
“I don’t have time right now. I have to plot on how to make this fly seamlessly.” Coulter regretted ever having picked up Gert. She had been at Cal Tech when Coulter had found Roberts. Apparently she really liked being around intelligent men. It was funny at first… though weird. She would launch into ecstatic fits and moans if someone talked of scientific theory, Einstein’s hypotheses, or chemical compounds. For a while, it was game to see what ramblings of chemical compound recipes or loosely joined phrases of physics would send her into euphoria. After the first ten times or so… it was old. She wouldn’t leave now. She said she stayed to keep Roberts company, but it never took too long for her to realize he was back at the lab.
“You think… you plot… I’ll play…” Her hands traced down his chest.
“You’re distracting me.”
“A compliment from you?”
“It’s not a compliment. It’s an annoyance.” He was really going to have to get rid of her… maybe he could infect her. Maybe he could feed her to Blake or to patient zero.
Her hands trailed to his belt as her arms draped lightly over his shoulders. “You need me…” she whispered and it’s as if she knew she needed to defend her place. “I got him to stay on task today. He kept trying to put in that Star Trek movie with the Genesis Device.” Her hands began to unravel his belt. “I got him to work. I told him he could reward himself with watching Big Bang Theory if he could succeed.” Her voice was gravelly… He toyed with letting her continue with her desires. She should be rewarded for actually doing something useful.
“No… not now… Gert,” He pulled her hands from his belt and refastened it. “You go play with the nerd-pet. I’ve got to do stuff.” He picked up the phone again. “Cortez, take your time. I’ve got some more tests to run. Take her for a spin… if you’d like. I’ve got some more help coming, maybe you can instruct them to ship out the man from the hotel.” He watched Gert stretch her bare legs under the lab coat and caught a flash of skin from her stomach. It hit him that she was only wearing a bikini under the white coat with pastel chemical stains.
She twisted her finger into her shoulder length raven hair. Her walnut brown eyes gazed at him for a moment before she turned. “Leroy… Leroy… Want me to find my Leia costume?”
“Oooh, yes! We wantz it so!”
------
“Chief, this is Dizzy and Basie. Here we have Ellington, Parker, Armstrong, and our newest member, King.” King smiled at the man that Thelonious called Chief. He wanted to make a good impression on the new boss.
“Basie, you’re a girl? I didn’t realize you were a girl last time. Did you change?”
“Nope… have always been a girl…” Basie smiled and King watched the chief ponder Basie again.
“Huh… ok… I guess it doesn’t matter.”
The one called King wasn’t sure if he was more upset to be known as the newest member or to be code named King. It wasn’t a bad name. He was a great musician and fit in with the rest of the code names. It just occurred to the one called King that his name was the only one still being used by the original. Did anyone else see the pattern? These were all Jazz greats. Wasn’t anyone else curious why a codename wasn’t picked for him of another Jazz great who was already passed on. B.B. King still performs in St. Louis. Why not Davis? Or he would have been ok with Holiday or Rainey, even if they were women. Being called King made him nervous.
He was really Tyrone Hill. He had grown up in Cincinnati. He had been sneaking into bars since he could remember, not to drink, but to hear the music. If he couldn’t get passed the bouncer, he’d sit on the fire escape. It was anything to get to the music. It’s what he loved. And fireworks. He loved to blow shit up. Music and Munitions.
However, what he loved… was out of reach. He could name a song…from three notes sometimes. He could recite lyrics without a thought. He breathed music. However, every time a social work therapist, a school music teacher, or community church liaison would hand him an instrument and try to get him to play, he couldn’t remember what he had learned from his last lesson. They tried to teach him to sing, but his voice just couldn’t hold. He’d do anything to be on the stage… just once…
Tyrone was nervous now. He had been on many jobs. He was used to weird rules and not knowing any details. It was better that way. If you know stuff, and something goes wrong… or something goes right, you’re a liability. If you know nothing… you’re not only possibly going to get out of it alive and with pay, but possibly secured for another venture.
The man called Chief was walking around, giving a tour. Tyrone was doing his best not to get too nosy. He noted the entrances. He noted the windows. He noted the doors. He noted where he would put the C-4 to blow those doors wide open if he needed a way out in a hurry. They were supposed to do security for now. Apparently a big hit was coming up. Something about delivering a crate. Something about another doctor.
Then a sort of Hispanic looking guy walked in. He was lighter than Tyrone, but only slightly. Tyrone tugged at his longest dreadlock and tried to look like he couldn’t hear anything. Unfortunately he could. He was trying so hard not to.
“Dr. Cortez, are you impressed? You can use them as you see fit, except one… I have a special mission for one. They’re good… I’ve worked with these three before.”
“Coulter…”
“Ah… now they know my name…”
“You should of told me they didn’t, plus… I thought you said that wasn’t your name…”
Tyrone began making mental la-la noises. He was hearing too much. He had a bad feeling that things were going to go badly. He leaned against a shelf in the lab and tried not to look at the contents on the shelf, but he felt something slip off the shelf from his shoulder’s contact. He turned to catch it and caught the title, Voodoo in the Caribbean: An Anthropological Study. Ok... there’s a book of Voodoo? Seriously. He looked at the shelf only to see where to put the book, but he saw more than he had hoped to see. Death of a Brain, Loas of Voodoun, and the Journal of BaronSamedi were on the same shelf. Samedi… Voodoo priest who communed with loas… powerful spirits.
The words of his grandmother filled his mind. She had been born in Algiers. She had told him all about the Voodoo and Hoodoo, the religions, the cults, the beliefs, and the superstitions. He was barely able to sleep at night as a kid thanks to her. She would cast copper on the floor to find which way the spirits would want her to go when she reached a need for a decision. She would bind herbs and trinkets in bags and stick them in his and his siblings pockets to protect them. He would tell his mother about the monsters in his closet, but it was always his grandmother who would come and check. His friends told him that their parents would prove there were no monsters so they could sleep. His grandmother would list off the types of monsters that would hide in the closet and the different ways to repel them. He’d found that a quarter-stick of dynamite bought at the fireworks store could repel a lot of things. Eight of them tied together could repel a lot more.
His fear had driven him through school. His fear had driven him into the army, in hopes of learning how to defend himself. His fear had pushed him… kept him from working the nine to five job, kept him from keeping legit. He just couldn’t face normal people and smile when he knew what could be in the closet… what they didn’t know they needed to guard themselves from.
Tyrone was ready to quit. He didn’t need any money this bad. He looked at his leader, Thelonious. Thelonious was watching Coulter and Cortez as they talked. How was he going to explain he needed to leave? He had seen too much. And they all knew it. He would look like a … a narc.
“Sir…Thelonious?”
“What is it, King?”
“Am I needed on this? I think I’m getting the flu…”
Thelonious turned and regarded him. “Something wrong, son?”
“I have a bad feeling, sir.”
“Grow a pair. You’ll be fine.”
Tyrone shook his head… even the chief had no sense about him. He watched as Cortez turned and gave them all a cursorily glance. Then Cortez turned, “Alright… all but King, follow me. We’ll go set up shop.”
“You’ll be fine, kid.” Thelonious patted him on the back as he walked off.
Tyrone stood there. He watched the rest of the men walk off after Cortez and swallowed. He started to lift his foot as if to follow, even though the order was for him to stay. He heard a girl giggle and turned in time to see a girl with dark hair and a gold bikini dash from a pale guy in a lab coat and horn rimmed glasses. She could have out run him… she could have kicked his butt, but instead she feigned weakness and he scooped her up. It was odd to see such a lithe girl in the arms of the average Joe nerd. He gave a smile and rooted for the underdog as the lab guy started peeling off the bikini.
“They’re always good for a floor show… You can watch them later, if you’re feeling up to it.” Coulter’s voice was even-toned and eerie. “I mean only, if you’re not to overworked or worn out from your task.”
Tyrone swallowed again, “What is my task?”
“I need you to come here and sit in this chair.” Coulter pointed to something that looked like a dentist chair. “Go ahead. Lie back. Take a deep breath… I’m just going to give you an injection and then I’ll have you run a bit on this treadmill… to get your blood flowing… and then I’ll run some tests on the results.”
Tyrone looked at Coulter. He didn’t look evil… but he did have Voodoo books. “What kind of injection? What kind of tests?”
“Don’t your type work on the rules of not knowing much of what’s going on so that you can avoid being collateral damage in the cleanup?”
Tyrone inhaled and held his breath. He crawled into the chair. “Yes… we stand by that, sir. We don’t want to know.”
“Good. Let’s begin.” Coulter began to bring straps up over Tyrone’s arms.
“Is this necessary?”
“Mr. King, this is for your safety as well.”
King didn’t believe him, but it was too late. He was already strapped in. He looked down and flexed his hand. He hoped he would live to see 26. The thought occurred to him that really had to rethink his career choice. He watched as Coulter strapped his legs to the foot rests. He closed his eyes so as to hide the wide eyed look he knew he was wearing.
He felt cold metal trail up his right arm. He forced his right eye open to see bent scissors cutting up his sleeve. “Um… my shirt?”
“You’ll be compensated later. Trust me, after I’m done… you’ll not want for any luxuries, such as fine clothes or money.”
Tyrone closed his eyes. Coulter’s words should have given him contentment. The man was going to compensate him… Wait, he didn’t say he’d compensate him… Coulter had said he’d feel no wants for luxuries… Was that an odd way to say he’d be paid? “I guess you pay your guinea pigs well?”
“They get rewarded well as I see fit.”
There was a whiny chuckle… from across the room. “My handsome Jedi, you’ve saved me…” followed the mirth.
“That geek… he’s got a girl?” Tyrone looked at Coulter. He tried to see the human behind the googles.
“Yes, and it eludes him that she’s playing Leia and he think he’s Luke… And he forgets, that bikini is worn after Luke knows Leia is his sister.” Coulter shook his head as he focused on the needle he was flicking as he pointed it toward the ceiling. “Don’t get me started… that side of the room has all sorts of wrong going on.”
Tyrone chuckled. “Yeah... No kidding.” He closed his eyes again as he watched Coulter level the needle at his arm. The needle slid through his skin, Tyrone flinched. He tried to breathe. The air still flowed in and out of his lungs. He opened his eyes to see Coulter setting the needle down. Coulter picked up another one. “Doc, how many are we going to have?”
“Three… then you run… and then we’ll see.”
“Three little shots… I can do that… so far, so good.” Tyrone swallowed as Coulter tapped the needle and inserted it a quarter inch from the last target. Over half done. He didn’t feel any different. He was breathing a little faster, but maybe that was just the nerves. He felt the third puncture into his arm. “Almost there? Right, Doc?”
“Yep. Almost there.” He heard the third syringe as it was replaced on the tray. “Mr. King, please join me at the treadmill.” He felt the bonds being released.
“Yes sir.” Tyrone got off the chair as soon as the last strap was released. It felt good to be free again. He had to admit, it was silly to think he was going to perish in that chair. This was a man of science, not some crazy bad guy in a movie.
“If you could please step on the treadmill and start running at an even pace. The point is not to overwork yourself but to get your heart rate up.”
“Yes sir.” This may actually be the easiest cash he’d earned. Tyrone smiled and started to beat feet. He started at a slow jog and built up to a steady beat. He heard his feet hit the ground. Pound. Pound. Pound. Pound. He heard the pounding build an echo. The echo coursed through his body and thundered in the back of his ears. Pound. Pound. Pound. Pound.
“Mr. King… you may slow your pace now…” Tyrone obeyed… his feet slowed… the pounding did not. “Take it to a walk, Mr. King.” Tyrone slowed to a walking pace. That’s when he realized the pounding was his heart, thundering in his ears.
“Chief? Mr. Coulter? Uh… I think… my heart…”
“Lay down on the chair again, Mr. King.”
Tyrone nodded and crawled on the chair… “I think my heart…” He heard his heart begin to slow. He exhaled in relief… “That was scary…” His heart continued to slow on his next exhale. “Do you need me to describe any…”
“No, Mr. King. You’re doing just what I need you to do.”
Tyrone exhaled again as he watched Coulter refasten the straps. He exhaled again. Coulter looked up at him. “You’re doing fine, Mr. King.”
Tyrone exhaled again… it occurred to him that he didn’t remember inhaling. The thundering was subsiding… “Doc?”
“Mmm?”
Tyrone wanted to ask what was going on and when he was going to come out of it. He tried to form the words… The thundering was very hushed… more like a rumble now. He felt like exhaling, but he was afraid to let the air go, in case it didn’t come back, so he held it in.
It then occurred to Tyrone that Coulter didn’t need to pay him if he was dead. There was really no reason for Coulter to leave him alive. Tyrone looked at Coulter.
“Mr. King… You’re doing fine… it’ll all pass soon.”
----
Tasha stood in the room. There were no windows. The walls were a grey white. The tile was off-white with beige speckles. There was no furniture. There was a dim light bulb overhead, as if someone had put a 40 watt bulb in place of a 60 watt to save energy. She could hear giggling and squealing. She hadn’t really seen anything outside of this room. She hadn’t remembered many details of her surroundings since the hotel room. All she remembered was Corner putting down the gun instead of defending her.
Was she mad? Maybe. Was she disappointed? Very. Was she surprised? No. Men have not proven reliable. They tended to promise rainbows and provide puddles of mud. Raleigh had come through in that only she had not expected much from him. Why did she expect Corner was going to be different? Why should she expect Corner to rescue her now?
Tasha sat down. She tried not to think about the hunger. She had felt like she was about to have the best steak dinner of her life back at the hotel. She tried not to think about the fact that it wasn’t going to be steak… or what Cortez had said about her being dead. He seemed to know more than about what was going on than any of them. She wished she could have gotten more out of him before they had been turned over to Raleigh.
She hadn’t see Corner for hours now. She hadn’t seen anyone but the ferrety looking lab guy actually. He had come in a couple times, sneering down his nose and sniffling when he talked about needing to bring her out to Coulter for more tests. He acted like he was tough, but his eyes shook when he looked at her. He was afraid of her. He was afraid she was going to jump him. He smiled and looked tough, but he was a twelve year old boy when he looked at her.
“Tasha.”
Tasha looked around. There were no shadows in the room except her own. There was nothing but an empty 10 x 10 tiled room and a dim light. “I must be going crazy finally.”
“Tasha, dear.” Tasha looked to where the voice had come. A paler woman stood in the room, smiling weakly at her.
“I’m going crazy. It was bound to happen… Coca Cola, gravel and hail, brains for steak.”
“Tasha, it’s all going to be alright.”
“Momma?”
-----
“Mr. King. You’re an excellent patient. We’ll be wrapping this up soon.”
Tyrone tried to exhale. There was no air.
“I’m just going to turn on the display here.” Coulter turned and flipped on a large monitor beside Tyrone. “Now, Mr. King, let’s watch those nanobots I injected dance through your bloodstream and into your head. Then I can compare what their response is compared to what they should be in a human.”
Tyrone tried to blink.
“What you’re feeling is the last of your life as it fades, just in case you wanted to know.”
Tyrone wanted to ask why? He wanted to inhale.
“Mr. King, you’ve been a big help. You’ve proven to me that the nanobots are safe to use on patient zero. You’ve given me a baseline of information for the comparison when I do inject these little fellows in her.”
“Is it important to make his last minutes frightful?”
“Roberts, I’m just wrapping up business. Look, your darlings are working.”
“Yes, sir. That’s my beautiful little babies.”
Tyrone looked up and saw the nerdy guy looking down at him. His hair was standing on end in places. He tried to ask for help. The guy looked away.
There was a muffled, “I must be going crazy finally.” It was a woman’s voice, and not the one in the Leia costume. Both Coulter and the nerd looked at the door. Tyrone tried to look, but his head wouldn’t move.
“Is that patient zero?” Coulter regarded the door a few moments.
“I think so.”
“I’m going crazy. It was bound to happen… Coca Cola, gravel and hail, brains for steak.”
“Who is she talking to?” Coulter’s face tightened. “Shut up!”
“There’s no way anyone’s in there.”
Tyrone watched as a grey veil fell over his eyes. As his mind tried to follow where the veil had come from and what was going on in the room that seemed so distant, he heard the woman’s voice simply say, “Momma?”
----
Thelonious was no fool. When Coulter had hired him, he had asked for anonymity. When Coulter had given stated his name, Thelonious had told his new employer that he was going to assume that the name was a hoax. Then Thelonious had done his research. He had gathered up every report card and every traffic violation Coulter had ever had. He gathered it all up and made copies. One set he put in a bank. He gave the key to his daughter.
The other copy, he mailed to himself and left it at a post box, with a letter detailing what he was into. Thelonious was no chump. He was not going to disappear into the night at the crazy orders of his employer. Especially not for a heist on a government building. He had worked with the ones Coulter called Dizzy and Basie many times. He could count on them. So when the heist went well and Coulter asked for him to keep tabs on his team, Thelonious knew he didn’t need to. He did it, not to protect Coulter’s interests, but to protect his own. He wanted to make sure that nothing ‘suspicious’ occurred. He wanted to make sure that he was able to work with Dizzy and Basie again.
It had been a while since he had heard from Coulter. He was almost ready to believe it was the last time he’d hear from him. He had hoped he could believe that some day. Sadly, it wasn’t true. As Thelonious walked through the large warehouse that held a laboratory and several holding cells, Thelonious pondered the fate of his newest team member. He didn’t like letting one of his team go, especially the kid. He had hoped it was just a dangerous task, and not a guaranteed death. However, he didn’t trust Coulter as far as an infant could throw him.
He now found himself following a man named Cortez on a tour of the warehouse. His men following him, fanning out to fill the hallway. He studied the long hallway, trying to gauge the dimensions of the warehouse.
Cortez cleared his throat and broke Thelonious’ attention, “You’re called Thelonious?”
“That is right.”
“Do you know what you’re getting into?”
“Most likely not.”
“You know you left the kid to die?”
Thelonious dropped his shoulders. He had hoped for better. “I was hoping that wasn’t the case, but knew it was likely.”
“Thel?”
“Basie, I’m sorry. I had no choice.” He hadn’t had time to recruit another and the kid had begged to join. He had tried to talk him out of it initially. He now felt like a dog for telling the kid to ‘grow a pair’ when the King had gotten nervous back at the lab.
“Can we go back?”
“Mr. Dizzy, I don’t think there’s an easy way to do that.”
“So, what’s going on here, Cortez?”
Cortez turned and looked at Thelonious. “You’re seriously asking?” He folded his arms. Thelonious watched Cortez’s eyes scan the walls of the part of the hallway they were in. Was he looking to see if they were alone or being recorded?
“It’s none of my business, of course.”
“It is our business. We just lost one of our own!”
“Dizzy… the less we know, the longer we’ll live. You know the rules.”
Basie turned towards Cortez, “You know what’s going on… Yet you’re still standing here… Why?”
“I have my reasons.” Cortez turned and walked down the hall. He slowed his steps until the others fell in line.
“Cortez?”
“I have nothing to say at this time.”
“We need to leave now!” Basie hissed into his ear.
“We have a job to do.” He looked at Basie as she scowled.
“We should go get the kid and bail. This is going to be the end this time.”
“You say that every time you get the willies, Diz.” Thelonious did his best to not let on that he agreed with Dizzy this time. He watched Cortez. The man walked like a professional. He was packing, too. Thelonious knew there was more to him than a PhD. He assumed the man had a degree, since Coulter had called him doctor once. Coulter was more likely to drop the title than to add it gratuitously. What was an armed doctor doing working with a man like Coulter? Thelonious pulled out his phone and typed the message, ‘research Dr. Javier Cortez.’
“We frown upon contacting the outside world while on the job, Thelonious.”
“I understand. It won’t happen again.”
Cortez turned and looked at him. “See that it doesn’t.” Cortez started to turn and then he stopped. The mysterious doctor pulled him over to one side, away from his crew. “Thelonious… I know who you are. I know your name. I know where you come from. I never walk into any situation without knowing all of the pieces and all of the players. I have many sources.”
“Your point, Cortez?”
“If you and your team want to get out of this alive, you need to follow the rules, you need to be up front with me, and you need to keep in line. It’s a tightrope you are walking and you need to keep your balance. Most importantly, you need to keep on your guard and watch. If I think I can help you, I’m only going to give you the sign once.”
“Why are you saying this? How do you know that I’m not going to turn you in to Coulter myself?”
“I told you, I know who you are.” Dr. Cortez folded his arms in front of him. He locked his jaw. His dark eyes simmered.
“And who are you?” Thelonious put on the most dubious look he could muster.
“You don’t get to know that. You need to be ready to act. Do you understand?”
Thelonious studied the doctor’s face. He seemed sincere. He was actually possibly trying to help them. Thelonious looked over his team. They stood there, looking at him. Each member had special talents. Each one he had hand selected. They still seemed to trust him, even though he had just admitted to knowingly leaving the kid to his doom. He needed to minimize losses.
“Do you understand? I’m not going to ask again.” Cortez grasped his arm hard, shaking him slightly. He heard at least six hands reach to various guns. He smiled. They still have his back.
“Dr. Cortez, are you familiar with the saying, ‘if the snake feels cornered, the snake will bite’?”
Cortez chuckled. “I’ve heard it said.”
“You give the sign… I won’t miss it.” He knew when he needed to look for an out. He knew it was possible he would not get all of his team out even when the time was right to strike out. But he owed it to them to do his best… He knew they had to try, even if a few fell as they fled. Thelonious was no fool.
------
(26,273 words)
Tanya writing...
Mary Angela Piccalino killed time
going to school, or at least going through the motions. The little bitches in her school told her she
never had a chance with Matthew, he had a
girlfriend already, but Mary didn’t hear or care what they said. She’d made it to April, through most of her
junior year of high school, and she and Matthew were more in love than
ever. And one crisp morning, Mary packed
a single, small suitcase. She left her
school books on the kitchen table for her grandmother to see. She wouldn’t be needing them anymore. And she stepped out of the silent, little
house, and into the loud, running car of her boyfriend, and drove away from her
mother, her father, her grandmother, and her loneliness. Ohio was seven hours and a lifetime
away. A new lifetime.
The back patio wasn’t exactly what she’d been expecting, but she was with Matthew and she was happy! His uncle and aunt weren’t exactly what she was expecting either, but they were nice enough.
Observant enough, too. They’d been there only two weeks, when she’d turned around after putting on her shirt to find his Uncle Ray staring at her. Before she could say anything about him watching her get dressed, said it out loud: “She’s preggers.” Then he half-turned his head back to the house and said it again, only louder. “Matthewwwwwww, she’s preggers.”
Mary was seven months along at this point, and was finally showing. Matthew came to the patio, his head turned sideways like a dog questioning something. Mary stiffened as he approached her, then hugged her, then kissed her. “We’re pregnant?” he asked. She just nodded her head yes, and Matthew said it louder: “We’re pregnant!” She cried a little then, and realized she’d heard about it, read about it, but had never actually cried with joy before.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Durden had been charged with two tasks. One, get information from the librarian if she knew anything. If she did know something, two, kill her. If she didn’t know anything, well, now she’d been kidnapped, probably seen a zombie, and been taken to a secret lab. In other words, kill her. Coulter might be on site, or already on his way to Facility Two, so upon termination, Durden was to leave message. If he said, “I have a new book you might like to read,” it meant the girl had talked and he had something to report to this boss. If he read a quote from a book, then it meant nothing was said, the problem was dead, and everything was taken care of.
Cortez couldn’t let Durden kill Zenobia, so he’d been forced to kill Durden. He’d made sure he made Durden say the phrase, recording it on a digital recorder, before putting two bullets in his head. He placed the call to Coulter’s voicemail, then pulled the trigger on the building, as scheduled. Instead of water to put out a fire, the sprinkler system in the building would spray a sticky compound (not unlike napalm). Seven igniters placed throughout the building would set the building, labs and all, in flames. In less than an hour, there would be little more than ash.
By that time, a mister and missus Chuck Finley would check into the Crescent Hotel some eighty miles away. In the morning, he would drive on to Facility Two, and Zenobia would steal a car, and head on her own way.
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“Your rooms are here in Hangar 18,” Cortez said to the group, finishing up his quick tour of Facility Two. He then turned to their leader. “Thelonious, you’re in Hangar 7. If something happens, you’ll have com-link access to your team, but they can’t take you all out at once. If you’ll come with me, I can de-brief you while your team settles in.” Thelonious nodded, and the two men began to walk together down the hall.
“We should bolt!” Basie said behind them. Both men stopped. Thelonious turned and stepped quickly up to team member. Their noses couldn’t be more than a millimeter apart when he addressed her.
“Basie!” he yelled.
“Yes, sir!
“You WILL get ahold of yourself, soldier!”
“Yes, sir! She had snapped back into order. Thelonious waited several seconds before continuing in an even tone.
“You can go back to teaching junior high malcontents, and taking district-ordered self defense classes for when one of your students decides to stab you. But you’re not going to do that, are you? You’re making four times your annual salary for 2 weeks work. We’re not paid to worry about the new guy we picked up an hour ago. We’re not paid to bitch. We’re not paid to moan. We’re paid to be the bad guys.”
Basie nodded. “Yes, sir,” she said. Thelonious turned and walked back down the hall with Cortez.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Zenobia couldn’t return to the library now. She’d been ‘made.’ Anyone who knew about intelligence would know she was connected. There were at least a dozen agencies that had people whose only job was to search local news for “activity.” Sooner or later, someone with a score to settle would come looking, and probably sooner than later. No, her time at the Cardiff County Public Library was over.
Going back to her apartment would be a mistake, too. But that didn’t matter. In three years, she hadn’t collected anything she couldn’t do without. No clothes, no photo albums, no trinkets. No, her life in Halifax, Ohio was over, too, and that was just as well.
But what she wasn’t done with was Corner Johnson. She’d made no promises to him or herself, even. She hadn’t be deluded or allowed herself to ever seriously consider that this was it – that she would be settling down, that they’d get a little house together.
That she was in love.
No, it wasn’t love, but it was… nice. And she needed nice. Hell, she deserved a little nice.
She’d been in love, really in love, only once. And that would never work out. Two agents, different agencies? Never. Sure, they could swing it here and there, in between jobs, but retire? Together? Never. It would just be a matter of time. A matter of time before someone slipped, got sloppy for just a second, and someone would find them and pay them both back for a laundry list of crimes and bad deeds. A honeymoon bed in the Poconos could hold sixteen pints of blood and 276 bullets, on average. It happened often enough that there was an average.
And how could you go back to a “normal” life, when you were used to solving problems with two gunshots to the head? You couldn’t.
She remembered her mentor, telling her that all the killing took a toll on the heart. That once you let yourself become accustomed to killing, there was no room left for love. She’d found the opposite to be true. She didn’t have a problem ending a life, but the times between made her heart hunger from something, anything, a connection. And there’d really only been one that fit that bill. And that had been twelve years ago, a long time for a heart, with only brief visits here and there – Mauritania, St. Paul de Vence, Volgograd. And now Eureka Springs, Ohio.
And her mentor had ended up putting a shotgun in his mouth, so what did he know.
No, Corner wasn’t the love of her life, if such a thing even existed. But it had been nice. And she didn’t like someone else telling her that her that her latest life, and relationship, was just over. She didn’t like not having a say in her own life. So, having her cover blown was freeing in a way. Because she was going dig up her emergency money and ID kit #6, and then find, save, and say goodbye to her boyfriend, Corner Johnson.
And then she was going to kill whoever had set this all in motion.
And if he was planning on dumping her for some Irish, zombie chick? Well, she’d probably kill that bitch, too.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Cortez opened the door, and Thelonious followed him into the room. “This will be your room.”
“It’s not the Ritz, but it should do, Dr. Cortez. Is there a draft in here?” Cortez narrowed his eyes. He scanned the corners of the room quickly, then turned back to his new partner of sorts.
“I don’t feel one, but I wouldn’t be surprised,” he said. “Old buildings like this tend to.”
“Do you mind if I ask you couple of questions, doctor?
“No, not at all. What’s on your mind?”
“It’s been three years since we worked for Coulter. A lot can change in that time. I assume the money is good?”
Cortez blinked once, saying, “Yes,” then touched his thumb to his pinky finger, almost imperceptively. “I’m sure you’ll find Mr. Coulter’s rate substantially higher than other markets.” Thelonious nodded.
“Well, that’s good to know. Thank you, doctor.”
“I’ve got some work to do in the lab,” Cortez said. “I’ve been working with Coulter by conference call and e-mail, but there are a couple of things I need to do hands on. Two minor changes, and testing. Three days, four tops. You and your men will have till Thursday or so, a chance to rest up and acclimate.”
“Go stir crazy is more like it, doctor. But it is what it is,” and Thelonious shook Cortez’s hand. “Perhaps we should head back to the team with the update?” He did one last glance about the room for cameras.
“Yes,” Cortez replied, and they both walked back to Hangar 18 without saying another word.
-----------------------------------------------------------
The woman, who would later call herself Zenobia, lay next to the man calling himself Cortez. The slight sweat on her brow drying from the ceiling fan, her breathing settling back to normal. They were in small inn near Pelly Bay, Canada; before West Africa or the U.S.S.R. or France or China. It was only their second meeting after Chile.
“You know, you could’ve gotten yourself killed back there,” Cortez said.
“But I didn’t!” she said, kissing his cheek.
“Still, you need to check people out, size them up more.”
“Then teach me!” she said sitting up in bed. His eyes stared at her soft, pendulous breasts for a moment. Unlike the movies, she wasn’t wearing a t-shirt afterwards, and he wasn’t inexplicably wearing boxer shorts. Though she had worn them for a while, which seemed odd at first, but in the end, that was the least of it. He would certainly never look at lamp shades or cheese the same way again.
“All right,” Cortez said, sitting up as well. “You’re not trying to figure out if they’re an agent or not. You assume that first – everyone you meet is an agent; everyone you meet is going to try to kill you. You’re deciding if you can check them off that list, not put them on it.”
“Okay,” she said. “But what if I think they might be on my team, or my handler?”
“A single, slow blink tells them you’re starting a conversation, a secret conversation. Don’t look down like you’re flirting. Look right at them, and don’t look away, with as little expression on your face as possible. If they blink back, they’ve acknowledged you’re talking.”
“Okay.”
“Everything is in code, one code or another. If you’re asking questions no one can pick up on, non verbally…”
“Non verbally?” she asked.
“Yeah, like you glance at a magazine with a gun on the cover, or touch your pocket to indicate you have a gun and are asking if they’re armed too, they answer you with one blink for yes, and two blinks for no.” Zenobia nodded.
“You have to be subtle with gestures, too. If you touch your watch,” Cortez continued, “it means we have to act now! If you rub your eyes, it means we have to contain this situation before it gets out of hand. If you touch your temple, it means I think you and I are on the same team, let’s work together.” Zen moved in closer to Javier, smiling broadly at him.
“And ?” she asked, wanting more and more. She was, on all counts and in all ways, seemingly insatiable.
“Well,” Cortez breathed, thinking. “There are hundreds of things, really.” Zen sat smiling. “The best things are things you shortcuts, things you share with other people, but you might not even know it; lines from old episodes of Star Trek, building model planes, sight of hand, performing magic tricks when you were a kid.” Zen still sat, not moving, waiting for him to continue. “Okay, well, if someone asks you if you’d like to take a vacation in, they’re asking if you’re available for an assignment. If they ask if there’s a draft in the room, they’re asking if anybody is listening, whether that’s people walking by or the room being bugged. If they ask you about your job, ask if the pay is good, they’re asking how is the boss?”
“Is the money good?” Zen said.
“Yes. And your answer is always YES. What happens next is what’s important. If you touch knee everything is A-OK, the boss is good, the job is on the up and up. If you touch any of your first three fingers to your thumb, it means I’m uncertain, this could go either way. It could be a legit job; it could be that as soon as the job is over, they’re going to kill you, too. But if you touch your thumb to you pinky…”
“Yesssss?”
“That means it’s all bad, I’m double-crossing the boss & I need your help. So, you never even absent-mindedly do that.” Zen shook her head.
“Absolutely,” she said, suddenly serious. “What if someone knocks on the door? Says it room service?”
“Shoot them through the door,” Cortez said flatly. “The food here is terrible.” She smiled.
“What if they say it’s a land shark?”
“Shoot them, too. That skit hasn’t been funny since 1975.” They both smiled. “If someone asks you ‘Is there anything I need to know?’ Your answer tells them how many days till you act. Monday is 7 days, Tuesday 3 days, Wednesday…” and he chuckled. “That’s not important right now. I can tell you all that later. You have to memorize it. More importantly, if someone says ‘Everything will be explained at the meeting,’ it means we’re killing him now!”
Zen nodded again. “What’s so funny about Wednesday?” Cortez chuckled again.
“If you tell someone, ‘See you next Wednesday,’ it means I’m gonna be nailing some fine ***, but I’m on the job, too.” Looking down, Zen still nodded seriously, then looked up at Javier, smiled and kissed him hard, pushing him to the mattress at the same time.
“I believe today is Wednesday, Mr. Cortez,” she said. Then she stopped. “What do we do with the body?” she whispered. They both looked at the closet door.
Cortez gently pushed Zen off of him. It wasn’t the closet; it was the door past it that opened to the hallway. It was the shadow under it. She watched as Cortez slowly reached behind him, his right hand slipping beneath his pillow. She followed suit, doing the same with her left hand. They smiled at each other, ever so briefly, before they both jumped to their feet, their arms moving in tandem from under their respective pillows, guns coming even with each other, pointing at the hall door, and opening fire.
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Matthew had begun working late, trying to earn some extra money before the baby came, he said. So the last six weeks hadn’t gone exactly as Mary had expected. But they were together, and they were in love, and they were having a baby together.
It was a Tuesday morning. The sun hadn’t come up yet, when Mary awoke with the pains. They’d gone twice before, and it had been false labor both times. But this time was it, she was sure of it. Matthew slowly put on his socks, then his work pants, grumbling all the time. He forgot to help her up, but it didn’t matter, and Mary got herself into the car and they headed for the hospital.
She could see the sun rising through the windows rushing by as they wheeled her to the delivery room. One of the doors swung open and closed, open and closed as she waited, and through it, she could see Matthew, smiling, talking to a nurse. And suddenly, and for no reason, Mary thought to herself, ‘That’s NOT his cousin.” But it didn’t matter, because she was about to have his baby, and they we’re going to be happy together. Or did it?
It was not yet 10:00 AM, when they wheeled Mary into her room. She’d been with the baby in the recovery room for nearly an hour, waiting for Matthew, and finally had to put him away. Matthew and a nurse came into the room around 10:45. Without introducing herself or even saying hello, the nurse began asking Mary questions and filling out forms that couldn’t be done before the delivery. Matthew wasn’t smiling. He was staring down at his feet a lot, talking to Mary at the same time as the nursed, but not looking her in the eye at all.
Do you have insurance? He was carrying a stuffed parrot for the baby, that he’d picked up in the hospital gift store. What is the father’s name? He set it on the tray next to Mary’s bed without saying a word, then began talking, almost non-sensically, over the top of the nurse. Do you both live in the same residence? He didn’t expect this, about how he was going to have to work for his other uncle, back in Tennessee, just for a little while, to – you know – build up a little nest egg for the baby. Do you know your blood type and that of the father? He didn’t expect this, but they’d work it out, it wasn’t his whole life, after all. You’ll most likely be released tomorrow; will there be someone to take you and the baby home? And then he’d be back, a week, tops, maybe two, and they’d all be together. Do you have a name for the baby? You’ll see, I’m not lying. I’ll be back. Do you have a name for the baby?
And he was out the door.
Do you have a name for the baby?
And he WAS lying. And he wasn’t coming back. Ever. And she was in Ohio. All alone, and stupid, and ruined in God-forsaken Ohio.
Do you have a name for the baby?
And it all rushed up on her: How stupid she’d been, how her father had left her, how her mother had left her, how her grandmother had taken her in, and worked hard to provide for her, and then she’d been quiet and distant and stupid and was stuck hundreds of miles away from the only person who’d cared for her, whom she’d walked out on eight and a half months ago without saying goodbye, without even leaving so much as a note, and here she was, alone, again, with a baby.
The nurse came in the next morning and they filled out the paperwork together. She was an older woman, at least to Mary, maybe 55, and though she was black and looked nothing like her grandmother, there was something about her that reminded her of her Grandma Carafino.
When they’d finished all but one question, the nurse called Uncle Ray and he said he’d come pick her up. When he didn’t show by noon, she called again, only to be hung up on. The nurse was infuriated now, and was storming out of the room when Mary asked her a question. She answered, the nurse wrote it down, and left.
There was a lot of squabbling in the hall outside her room, and finally an older man, the director of something or the other, came in to drive her home.
Mary hadn’t even laid the baby in the crib yet, when she heard Matthew’s “Aunt Molly” behind her say, “He ain’t comin’ back, ya know.” Not that it mattered, but Molly was only 19 herself, almost twenty years younger than, and not actually married to Uncle Ray.
“I know,” Mary said.
“We’re heading up to the Old Fashion Days in Madison on Friday,” Molly continued. “Gonna be a bike show up there. Ray’s gonna buy me a Harley, me and him both. You gotta be gone when we get back. With Matthew gone, you ain’t no kin. You gotta be gone.”
She wanted to cry. She wanted to scream. She wanted to yell, “WHERE THE HELL ARE WE SUPPOSED TO GO!?!” But she didn’t. She just said, “I know,” and Molly left the room. A minute or two later, she would hear Molly yell, “And don’t be taking any of food when you go!” but it didn’t matter. Mary was scared, more scared than she’d ever been in her life, but she was calm. Calm and deliberate.
She began packing what few things she had into what was most likely her mother’s suitcase that she’d ostensibly stolen from her grandmother’s house. When she was done, she was going to feed her baby, burp him, and put him down for a nap. In two hours, she’d see if he was ready to eat again.
In the morning, the nurse was going to pick her up and take her to house for girls like her. It wasn’t going to be easy, but she was going to learn how to take care of her baby, and learn how to do something else, like type or something. They were going to help her find a job, and find an apartment she could afford, maybe with another girl like herself, so they could take turns watching each other’s baby while the other worked.
And she was going to be okay. Because she wasn’t going to be alone. She had a new son, who she had just finished feeding and burping, and who was sleeping, so soundly and so gently, against her breast. The skin on skin contact – so simple and so beautiful.
And she thought about the nurse who would be so important in so many ways, and yet ten years from now, she wouldn’t be able to recall her name. She would be okay. They wouldn’t be rich, but they would be okay. She’d be the mother she never had; not perfect by a long shot, but there, and loving. The nurse would put all that in motion, leading to a mostly happy boy who would grow to be a man who would never do what his father had done. The nurse who was filling out the forms with her, the day after he was born, and getting the answers to all the questions, but one: Do you have a name for the baby?
She didn’t. The father was Matthew Johnson, and she didn’t have a name for her new baby.
And as the nurse was leaving the hospital room, Mary thought again how she reminded her of her grandmother. She didn’t know why, but before she thought about it, she’d blurted out the question, “When are things going to get better?”
And the nurse turned around and said, “When you MAKE them better.” And then she smiled, and added, “Good times are just around the corner.”
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Three days qualified as stir crazy. Four days in Facility Two with nothing to do was something else, entirely.
“No, no,” Ellington was saying to Dizzy. “I’ll give you the ‘Green Cell Grey’ song, but that’s it. Ned's Atomic Dustbin was a one-hit wonder.”
“Kill Your Television,” Dizzy replied. “Their second hit was ‘Kill Your Television.’
“All right, you got me there. But what I’m saying is that there was no band that could beat the Time.”
“Who?” Dizzy asked, but in his South Punxy or Whatever-Shit-Neighborhood English accent, it sounded more like ‘Oooo?’ The more Dizzy spoke in convoluted, un-understandable English tongue, the more refined and precise Ellington spoke.
“Morris Day and the Time,” he enunciated. “They were, and are, the premiere R&B/Funk/Dance band of all time!”
“Never ’eard of ’em,” Dizzy countered. Ellington gritted his teeth.
“That, my friend, is a falsehood. Jungle Love’? You have heard ‘Jungle Love.’
“No, I ’aven’t.”
“Now, you’re just being difficult. The Bird, Skillet, Chocolate?”
“You do what you will cooking your chocolate birds, but I ’ever ’eard o’ them,” Dizzy said. “Certainly not in any league with the Neds.”
“All right, I’ll give you simple fact that ‘I Wanna Be Adored’ was a palatable song as well, but Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis…”
“That’s not Neds. You’re thinking of the Stone Roses.”
“I am not,” Ellington said, offended.
“Ooo are! That’s the Stone Roses did that one!”
“Why is it you talk like that? Are you simply torturing me while you wait to be in a Guy Ritchie movie?”
“Ere, now, that’s no way to be getting offensive,” Dizzy said rising up from his seat. “Iss is ’ow you get offensive,” and he punched Ellington across his jaw.
“That’s ENOUGH!” Basie said, standing between them.
“It is,” said Thelonious. He’d been standing in the doorway with Cortez for some time. “Dizzy, Ellington, quit your playing and follow me. We’re due for a meet & greet with the boss.” Basie walked out of the room, and Dizzy followed. Ellington rubbed his jaw. Coltrane, a somewhat large man who Basie had referred to one drunken night in Thailand as ‘a lovely piece of chocolate,’ put his hand on Ellington’s shoulder and fell in behind him.
“You’re right,” he said. “The Time beats any of those tea-drinking English bands,” and he laughed his big, hearty laugh.
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The lab was a small one, one of three in Facility Two. Coulter stood behind a table with his scribbled notes and papers. Behind him was a four by four foot square window, double-plated and bullet-proof; a view into the holding cell that held one occupant: Tasha Harris.
The team filed in one by one: Basie, Dizzy, and Ellington, followed by Coltrane, Parker, and Armstrong. Thelonious and Cortez followed them. Finally, the Cal Tech scientists, Leroy Roberts and Gert, came in last.
“Mr. Thelonious,” Coulter started, why don’t you introduce everyone so my staff and everyone here knows what we’re dealing with. Code names only, of course.” Thelonious moved to the front.
“Basie and Dizzy you know. They were with me on Stage Four of the project, acquiring the nano technology.” Basie was wearing the standard Reservoir Dogs black suit, white shirt, black tie. As usual, the shirt was unbuttoned one too many, the tie a loosened mess. Dizzy, on the other hand, was wearing a dark maroon suit that almost looked like crushed velvet. His dark shirt and dark tie almost disappeared in it, except that the knot in the tie was so large; a double-Windsor, most likely.
“ello,” he said, stepping forward and smiling. No one returned the smile, and so he awkwardly stepped back.
“You may not have met Ellington, here,” Thelonious said. “He handled security protocols from the van, and the diversion play in the lobby for the Stage Four operation.” Ellington nodded politely to the gathering, like the gentleman he was. He was dressed in an all white suit, with a white shirt, and a rich, burgundy tie. His hair was perfect.
“This is Coltrane,” Thelonious continued. Coltrane stepped up to the front, and stayed next to Thelonious. “I worked with him overseas at the beginning of my career. We ran twenty-two missions together. If we need to double the size of my team, I need a second in command I can count on. Coltrane is that man.” Coltrane and Ellington were both fairly tall men, and both well-dressed, but while Ellington was fairly thin, Coltrane seemed almost twice as wide, his broad shoulders proudly displaying that he was no one to be trifled with. Coltrane wore an understated black suit and white shirt, like Basie, but his tie was the color of the softest purple. Like all his ties, it was picked for its beauty and for the reaction it inevitably would bring, especially on such a large man. It stood in feminine defiance of its owner, who’d have it no other way. It taunted people to look at it and say something derogative, but no one ever did. Coltrane would tell people it was periwinkle, not because that’s what color it was; it wasn’t, it was more of cyan, actually. No he said it for two reasons: One, because it gave people the opportunity tell him he was wrong about the color, and two, because it gave him the opportunity to say ‘periwinkle’ and to goad them with, “What? You don’t like periwinkle? You don’t like me tie?” He would smile all the while, the most gentlemanly invitation to a fight most would ever see.
“Parker is a man we’ve worked with from time to time in New York,” Thelonious said. Parker was one of those men that people could never gauge his age; twenty-three or forty-three. He had jet black hair and a young face, but that face had far too many lines in it for a young man. With a large chin, and deep-set black eyes, he looked like a thug, but he wore what appeared to be an old tuxedo. No one questioned him about it.
“And this is Armstrong,” Thelonious said. He didn’t give any details or elaborate any further on the final man. Armstrong was that twenty-two year man that looked twelve. In many ways, he reminded people of the movie, Big. His suit was black, but seemed to be a couple of sizes too large for him. His tie was green with white and black pin stripes; the kind of tie a twelve year old borrows from his father for a symphonic band concert in the junior high gymnasium. The kind of tie one wears when that someone has never worn a tie before. And it was never tied properly, never pulled up all of the way, but not down enough to look as if he’d loosened it. No, just a sloppy twelve year old accountant in an oversized suit and his father’s tie.
“And I am Dr. Cortez,” Javier said. “I’ve been in the field on this project, but from here on out, I’ll be turning it over to you people and working in the lab with Mr. Coulter.”
“Doctor Coulter,” he corrected.
Cortez wasn’t sure if Coulter was a doctor at all, but he deferred so the meeting could get started.
“Doctor Coulter.”
The back patio wasn’t exactly what she’d been expecting, but she was with Matthew and she was happy! His uncle and aunt weren’t exactly what she was expecting either, but they were nice enough.
Observant enough, too. They’d been there only two weeks, when she’d turned around after putting on her shirt to find his Uncle Ray staring at her. Before she could say anything about him watching her get dressed, said it out loud: “She’s preggers.” Then he half-turned his head back to the house and said it again, only louder. “Matthewwwwwww, she’s preggers.”
Mary was seven months along at this point, and was finally showing. Matthew came to the patio, his head turned sideways like a dog questioning something. Mary stiffened as he approached her, then hugged her, then kissed her. “We’re pregnant?” he asked. She just nodded her head yes, and Matthew said it louder: “We’re pregnant!” She cried a little then, and realized she’d heard about it, read about it, but had never actually cried with joy before.
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Durden had been charged with two tasks. One, get information from the librarian if she knew anything. If she did know something, two, kill her. If she didn’t know anything, well, now she’d been kidnapped, probably seen a zombie, and been taken to a secret lab. In other words, kill her. Coulter might be on site, or already on his way to Facility Two, so upon termination, Durden was to leave message. If he said, “I have a new book you might like to read,” it meant the girl had talked and he had something to report to this boss. If he read a quote from a book, then it meant nothing was said, the problem was dead, and everything was taken care of.
Cortez couldn’t let Durden kill Zenobia, so he’d been forced to kill Durden. He’d made sure he made Durden say the phrase, recording it on a digital recorder, before putting two bullets in his head. He placed the call to Coulter’s voicemail, then pulled the trigger on the building, as scheduled. Instead of water to put out a fire, the sprinkler system in the building would spray a sticky compound (not unlike napalm). Seven igniters placed throughout the building would set the building, labs and all, in flames. In less than an hour, there would be little more than ash.
By that time, a mister and missus Chuck Finley would check into the Crescent Hotel some eighty miles away. In the morning, he would drive on to Facility Two, and Zenobia would steal a car, and head on her own way.
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“Your rooms are here in Hangar 18,” Cortez said to the group, finishing up his quick tour of Facility Two. He then turned to their leader. “Thelonious, you’re in Hangar 7. If something happens, you’ll have com-link access to your team, but they can’t take you all out at once. If you’ll come with me, I can de-brief you while your team settles in.” Thelonious nodded, and the two men began to walk together down the hall.
“We should bolt!” Basie said behind them. Both men stopped. Thelonious turned and stepped quickly up to team member. Their noses couldn’t be more than a millimeter apart when he addressed her.
“Basie!” he yelled.
“Yes, sir!
“You WILL get ahold of yourself, soldier!”
“Yes, sir! She had snapped back into order. Thelonious waited several seconds before continuing in an even tone.
“You can go back to teaching junior high malcontents, and taking district-ordered self defense classes for when one of your students decides to stab you. But you’re not going to do that, are you? You’re making four times your annual salary for 2 weeks work. We’re not paid to worry about the new guy we picked up an hour ago. We’re not paid to bitch. We’re not paid to moan. We’re paid to be the bad guys.”
Basie nodded. “Yes, sir,” she said. Thelonious turned and walked back down the hall with Cortez.
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Zenobia couldn’t return to the library now. She’d been ‘made.’ Anyone who knew about intelligence would know she was connected. There were at least a dozen agencies that had people whose only job was to search local news for “activity.” Sooner or later, someone with a score to settle would come looking, and probably sooner than later. No, her time at the Cardiff County Public Library was over.
Going back to her apartment would be a mistake, too. But that didn’t matter. In three years, she hadn’t collected anything she couldn’t do without. No clothes, no photo albums, no trinkets. No, her life in Halifax, Ohio was over, too, and that was just as well.
But what she wasn’t done with was Corner Johnson. She’d made no promises to him or herself, even. She hadn’t be deluded or allowed herself to ever seriously consider that this was it – that she would be settling down, that they’d get a little house together.
That she was in love.
No, it wasn’t love, but it was… nice. And she needed nice. Hell, she deserved a little nice.
She’d been in love, really in love, only once. And that would never work out. Two agents, different agencies? Never. Sure, they could swing it here and there, in between jobs, but retire? Together? Never. It would just be a matter of time. A matter of time before someone slipped, got sloppy for just a second, and someone would find them and pay them both back for a laundry list of crimes and bad deeds. A honeymoon bed in the Poconos could hold sixteen pints of blood and 276 bullets, on average. It happened often enough that there was an average.
And how could you go back to a “normal” life, when you were used to solving problems with two gunshots to the head? You couldn’t.
She remembered her mentor, telling her that all the killing took a toll on the heart. That once you let yourself become accustomed to killing, there was no room left for love. She’d found the opposite to be true. She didn’t have a problem ending a life, but the times between made her heart hunger from something, anything, a connection. And there’d really only been one that fit that bill. And that had been twelve years ago, a long time for a heart, with only brief visits here and there – Mauritania, St. Paul de Vence, Volgograd. And now Eureka Springs, Ohio.
And her mentor had ended up putting a shotgun in his mouth, so what did he know.
No, Corner wasn’t the love of her life, if such a thing even existed. But it had been nice. And she didn’t like someone else telling her that her that her latest life, and relationship, was just over. She didn’t like not having a say in her own life. So, having her cover blown was freeing in a way. Because she was going dig up her emergency money and ID kit #6, and then find, save, and say goodbye to her boyfriend, Corner Johnson.
And then she was going to kill whoever had set this all in motion.
And if he was planning on dumping her for some Irish, zombie chick? Well, she’d probably kill that bitch, too.
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Cortez opened the door, and Thelonious followed him into the room. “This will be your room.”
“It’s not the Ritz, but it should do, Dr. Cortez. Is there a draft in here?” Cortez narrowed his eyes. He scanned the corners of the room quickly, then turned back to his new partner of sorts.
“I don’t feel one, but I wouldn’t be surprised,” he said. “Old buildings like this tend to.”
“Do you mind if I ask you couple of questions, doctor?
“No, not at all. What’s on your mind?”
“It’s been three years since we worked for Coulter. A lot can change in that time. I assume the money is good?”
Cortez blinked once, saying, “Yes,” then touched his thumb to his pinky finger, almost imperceptively. “I’m sure you’ll find Mr. Coulter’s rate substantially higher than other markets.” Thelonious nodded.
“Well, that’s good to know. Thank you, doctor.”
“I’ve got some work to do in the lab,” Cortez said. “I’ve been working with Coulter by conference call and e-mail, but there are a couple of things I need to do hands on. Two minor changes, and testing. Three days, four tops. You and your men will have till Thursday or so, a chance to rest up and acclimate.”
“Go stir crazy is more like it, doctor. But it is what it is,” and Thelonious shook Cortez’s hand. “Perhaps we should head back to the team with the update?” He did one last glance about the room for cameras.
“Yes,” Cortez replied, and they both walked back to Hangar 18 without saying another word.
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The woman, who would later call herself Zenobia, lay next to the man calling himself Cortez. The slight sweat on her brow drying from the ceiling fan, her breathing settling back to normal. They were in small inn near Pelly Bay, Canada; before West Africa or the U.S.S.R. or France or China. It was only their second meeting after Chile.
“You know, you could’ve gotten yourself killed back there,” Cortez said.
“But I didn’t!” she said, kissing his cheek.
“Still, you need to check people out, size them up more.”
“Then teach me!” she said sitting up in bed. His eyes stared at her soft, pendulous breasts for a moment. Unlike the movies, she wasn’t wearing a t-shirt afterwards, and he wasn’t inexplicably wearing boxer shorts. Though she had worn them for a while, which seemed odd at first, but in the end, that was the least of it. He would certainly never look at lamp shades or cheese the same way again.
“All right,” Cortez said, sitting up as well. “You’re not trying to figure out if they’re an agent or not. You assume that first – everyone you meet is an agent; everyone you meet is going to try to kill you. You’re deciding if you can check them off that list, not put them on it.”
“Okay,” she said. “But what if I think they might be on my team, or my handler?”
“A single, slow blink tells them you’re starting a conversation, a secret conversation. Don’t look down like you’re flirting. Look right at them, and don’t look away, with as little expression on your face as possible. If they blink back, they’ve acknowledged you’re talking.”
“Okay.”
“Everything is in code, one code or another. If you’re asking questions no one can pick up on, non verbally…”
“Non verbally?” she asked.
“Yeah, like you glance at a magazine with a gun on the cover, or touch your pocket to indicate you have a gun and are asking if they’re armed too, they answer you with one blink for yes, and two blinks for no.” Zenobia nodded.
“You have to be subtle with gestures, too. If you touch your watch,” Cortez continued, “it means we have to act now! If you rub your eyes, it means we have to contain this situation before it gets out of hand. If you touch your temple, it means I think you and I are on the same team, let’s work together.” Zen moved in closer to Javier, smiling broadly at him.
“And ?” she asked, wanting more and more. She was, on all counts and in all ways, seemingly insatiable.
“Well,” Cortez breathed, thinking. “There are hundreds of things, really.” Zen sat smiling. “The best things are things you shortcuts, things you share with other people, but you might not even know it; lines from old episodes of Star Trek, building model planes, sight of hand, performing magic tricks when you were a kid.” Zen still sat, not moving, waiting for him to continue. “Okay, well, if someone asks you if you’d like to take a vacation in, they’re asking if you’re available for an assignment. If they ask if there’s a draft in the room, they’re asking if anybody is listening, whether that’s people walking by or the room being bugged. If they ask you about your job, ask if the pay is good, they’re asking how is the boss?”
“Is the money good?” Zen said.
“Yes. And your answer is always YES. What happens next is what’s important. If you touch knee everything is A-OK, the boss is good, the job is on the up and up. If you touch any of your first three fingers to your thumb, it means I’m uncertain, this could go either way. It could be a legit job; it could be that as soon as the job is over, they’re going to kill you, too. But if you touch your thumb to you pinky…”
“Yesssss?”
“That means it’s all bad, I’m double-crossing the boss & I need your help. So, you never even absent-mindedly do that.” Zen shook her head.
“Absolutely,” she said, suddenly serious. “What if someone knocks on the door? Says it room service?”
“Shoot them through the door,” Cortez said flatly. “The food here is terrible.” She smiled.
“What if they say it’s a land shark?”
“Shoot them, too. That skit hasn’t been funny since 1975.” They both smiled. “If someone asks you ‘Is there anything I need to know?’ Your answer tells them how many days till you act. Monday is 7 days, Tuesday 3 days, Wednesday…” and he chuckled. “That’s not important right now. I can tell you all that later. You have to memorize it. More importantly, if someone says ‘Everything will be explained at the meeting,’ it means we’re killing him now!”
Zen nodded again. “What’s so funny about Wednesday?” Cortez chuckled again.
“If you tell someone, ‘See you next Wednesday,’ it means I’m gonna be nailing some fine ***, but I’m on the job, too.” Looking down, Zen still nodded seriously, then looked up at Javier, smiled and kissed him hard, pushing him to the mattress at the same time.
“I believe today is Wednesday, Mr. Cortez,” she said. Then she stopped. “What do we do with the body?” she whispered. They both looked at the closet door.
Cortez gently pushed Zen off of him. It wasn’t the closet; it was the door past it that opened to the hallway. It was the shadow under it. She watched as Cortez slowly reached behind him, his right hand slipping beneath his pillow. She followed suit, doing the same with her left hand. They smiled at each other, ever so briefly, before they both jumped to their feet, their arms moving in tandem from under their respective pillows, guns coming even with each other, pointing at the hall door, and opening fire.
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Matthew had begun working late, trying to earn some extra money before the baby came, he said. So the last six weeks hadn’t gone exactly as Mary had expected. But they were together, and they were in love, and they were having a baby together.
It was a Tuesday morning. The sun hadn’t come up yet, when Mary awoke with the pains. They’d gone twice before, and it had been false labor both times. But this time was it, she was sure of it. Matthew slowly put on his socks, then his work pants, grumbling all the time. He forgot to help her up, but it didn’t matter, and Mary got herself into the car and they headed for the hospital.
She could see the sun rising through the windows rushing by as they wheeled her to the delivery room. One of the doors swung open and closed, open and closed as she waited, and through it, she could see Matthew, smiling, talking to a nurse. And suddenly, and for no reason, Mary thought to herself, ‘That’s NOT his cousin.” But it didn’t matter, because she was about to have his baby, and they we’re going to be happy together. Or did it?
It was not yet 10:00 AM, when they wheeled Mary into her room. She’d been with the baby in the recovery room for nearly an hour, waiting for Matthew, and finally had to put him away. Matthew and a nurse came into the room around 10:45. Without introducing herself or even saying hello, the nurse began asking Mary questions and filling out forms that couldn’t be done before the delivery. Matthew wasn’t smiling. He was staring down at his feet a lot, talking to Mary at the same time as the nursed, but not looking her in the eye at all.
Do you have insurance? He was carrying a stuffed parrot for the baby, that he’d picked up in the hospital gift store. What is the father’s name? He set it on the tray next to Mary’s bed without saying a word, then began talking, almost non-sensically, over the top of the nurse. Do you both live in the same residence? He didn’t expect this, about how he was going to have to work for his other uncle, back in Tennessee, just for a little while, to – you know – build up a little nest egg for the baby. Do you know your blood type and that of the father? He didn’t expect this, but they’d work it out, it wasn’t his whole life, after all. You’ll most likely be released tomorrow; will there be someone to take you and the baby home? And then he’d be back, a week, tops, maybe two, and they’d all be together. Do you have a name for the baby? You’ll see, I’m not lying. I’ll be back. Do you have a name for the baby?
And he was out the door.
Do you have a name for the baby?
And he WAS lying. And he wasn’t coming back. Ever. And she was in Ohio. All alone, and stupid, and ruined in God-forsaken Ohio.
Do you have a name for the baby?
And it all rushed up on her: How stupid she’d been, how her father had left her, how her mother had left her, how her grandmother had taken her in, and worked hard to provide for her, and then she’d been quiet and distant and stupid and was stuck hundreds of miles away from the only person who’d cared for her, whom she’d walked out on eight and a half months ago without saying goodbye, without even leaving so much as a note, and here she was, alone, again, with a baby.
The nurse came in the next morning and they filled out the paperwork together. She was an older woman, at least to Mary, maybe 55, and though she was black and looked nothing like her grandmother, there was something about her that reminded her of her Grandma Carafino.
When they’d finished all but one question, the nurse called Uncle Ray and he said he’d come pick her up. When he didn’t show by noon, she called again, only to be hung up on. The nurse was infuriated now, and was storming out of the room when Mary asked her a question. She answered, the nurse wrote it down, and left.
There was a lot of squabbling in the hall outside her room, and finally an older man, the director of something or the other, came in to drive her home.
Mary hadn’t even laid the baby in the crib yet, when she heard Matthew’s “Aunt Molly” behind her say, “He ain’t comin’ back, ya know.” Not that it mattered, but Molly was only 19 herself, almost twenty years younger than, and not actually married to Uncle Ray.
“I know,” Mary said.
“We’re heading up to the Old Fashion Days in Madison on Friday,” Molly continued. “Gonna be a bike show up there. Ray’s gonna buy me a Harley, me and him both. You gotta be gone when we get back. With Matthew gone, you ain’t no kin. You gotta be gone.”
She wanted to cry. She wanted to scream. She wanted to yell, “WHERE THE HELL ARE WE SUPPOSED TO GO!?!” But she didn’t. She just said, “I know,” and Molly left the room. A minute or two later, she would hear Molly yell, “And don’t be taking any of food when you go!” but it didn’t matter. Mary was scared, more scared than she’d ever been in her life, but she was calm. Calm and deliberate.
She began packing what few things she had into what was most likely her mother’s suitcase that she’d ostensibly stolen from her grandmother’s house. When she was done, she was going to feed her baby, burp him, and put him down for a nap. In two hours, she’d see if he was ready to eat again.
In the morning, the nurse was going to pick her up and take her to house for girls like her. It wasn’t going to be easy, but she was going to learn how to take care of her baby, and learn how to do something else, like type or something. They were going to help her find a job, and find an apartment she could afford, maybe with another girl like herself, so they could take turns watching each other’s baby while the other worked.
And she was going to be okay. Because she wasn’t going to be alone. She had a new son, who she had just finished feeding and burping, and who was sleeping, so soundly and so gently, against her breast. The skin on skin contact – so simple and so beautiful.
And she thought about the nurse who would be so important in so many ways, and yet ten years from now, she wouldn’t be able to recall her name. She would be okay. They wouldn’t be rich, but they would be okay. She’d be the mother she never had; not perfect by a long shot, but there, and loving. The nurse would put all that in motion, leading to a mostly happy boy who would grow to be a man who would never do what his father had done. The nurse who was filling out the forms with her, the day after he was born, and getting the answers to all the questions, but one: Do you have a name for the baby?
She didn’t. The father was Matthew Johnson, and she didn’t have a name for her new baby.
And as the nurse was leaving the hospital room, Mary thought again how she reminded her of her grandmother. She didn’t know why, but before she thought about it, she’d blurted out the question, “When are things going to get better?”
And the nurse turned around and said, “When you MAKE them better.” And then she smiled, and added, “Good times are just around the corner.”
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Three days qualified as stir crazy. Four days in Facility Two with nothing to do was something else, entirely.
“No, no,” Ellington was saying to Dizzy. “I’ll give you the ‘Green Cell Grey’ song, but that’s it. Ned's Atomic Dustbin was a one-hit wonder.”
“Kill Your Television,” Dizzy replied. “Their second hit was ‘Kill Your Television.’
“All right, you got me there. But what I’m saying is that there was no band that could beat the Time.”
“Who?” Dizzy asked, but in his South Punxy or Whatever-Shit-Neighborhood English accent, it sounded more like ‘Oooo?’ The more Dizzy spoke in convoluted, un-understandable English tongue, the more refined and precise Ellington spoke.
“Morris Day and the Time,” he enunciated. “They were, and are, the premiere R&B/Funk/Dance band of all time!”
“Never ’eard of ’em,” Dizzy countered. Ellington gritted his teeth.
“That, my friend, is a falsehood. Jungle Love’? You have heard ‘Jungle Love.’
“No, I ’aven’t.”
“Now, you’re just being difficult. The Bird, Skillet, Chocolate?”
“You do what you will cooking your chocolate birds, but I ’ever ’eard o’ them,” Dizzy said. “Certainly not in any league with the Neds.”
“All right, I’ll give you simple fact that ‘I Wanna Be Adored’ was a palatable song as well, but Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis…”
“That’s not Neds. You’re thinking of the Stone Roses.”
“I am not,” Ellington said, offended.
“Ooo are! That’s the Stone Roses did that one!”
“Why is it you talk like that? Are you simply torturing me while you wait to be in a Guy Ritchie movie?”
“Ere, now, that’s no way to be getting offensive,” Dizzy said rising up from his seat. “Iss is ’ow you get offensive,” and he punched Ellington across his jaw.
“That’s ENOUGH!” Basie said, standing between them.
“It is,” said Thelonious. He’d been standing in the doorway with Cortez for some time. “Dizzy, Ellington, quit your playing and follow me. We’re due for a meet & greet with the boss.” Basie walked out of the room, and Dizzy followed. Ellington rubbed his jaw. Coltrane, a somewhat large man who Basie had referred to one drunken night in Thailand as ‘a lovely piece of chocolate,’ put his hand on Ellington’s shoulder and fell in behind him.
“You’re right,” he said. “The Time beats any of those tea-drinking English bands,” and he laughed his big, hearty laugh.
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The lab was a small one, one of three in Facility Two. Coulter stood behind a table with his scribbled notes and papers. Behind him was a four by four foot square window, double-plated and bullet-proof; a view into the holding cell that held one occupant: Tasha Harris.
The team filed in one by one: Basie, Dizzy, and Ellington, followed by Coltrane, Parker, and Armstrong. Thelonious and Cortez followed them. Finally, the Cal Tech scientists, Leroy Roberts and Gert, came in last.
“Mr. Thelonious,” Coulter started, why don’t you introduce everyone so my staff and everyone here knows what we’re dealing with. Code names only, of course.” Thelonious moved to the front.
“Basie and Dizzy you know. They were with me on Stage Four of the project, acquiring the nano technology.” Basie was wearing the standard Reservoir Dogs black suit, white shirt, black tie. As usual, the shirt was unbuttoned one too many, the tie a loosened mess. Dizzy, on the other hand, was wearing a dark maroon suit that almost looked like crushed velvet. His dark shirt and dark tie almost disappeared in it, except that the knot in the tie was so large; a double-Windsor, most likely.
“ello,” he said, stepping forward and smiling. No one returned the smile, and so he awkwardly stepped back.
“You may not have met Ellington, here,” Thelonious said. “He handled security protocols from the van, and the diversion play in the lobby for the Stage Four operation.” Ellington nodded politely to the gathering, like the gentleman he was. He was dressed in an all white suit, with a white shirt, and a rich, burgundy tie. His hair was perfect.
“This is Coltrane,” Thelonious continued. Coltrane stepped up to the front, and stayed next to Thelonious. “I worked with him overseas at the beginning of my career. We ran twenty-two missions together. If we need to double the size of my team, I need a second in command I can count on. Coltrane is that man.” Coltrane and Ellington were both fairly tall men, and both well-dressed, but while Ellington was fairly thin, Coltrane seemed almost twice as wide, his broad shoulders proudly displaying that he was no one to be trifled with. Coltrane wore an understated black suit and white shirt, like Basie, but his tie was the color of the softest purple. Like all his ties, it was picked for its beauty and for the reaction it inevitably would bring, especially on such a large man. It stood in feminine defiance of its owner, who’d have it no other way. It taunted people to look at it and say something derogative, but no one ever did. Coltrane would tell people it was periwinkle, not because that’s what color it was; it wasn’t, it was more of cyan, actually. No he said it for two reasons: One, because it gave people the opportunity tell him he was wrong about the color, and two, because it gave him the opportunity to say ‘periwinkle’ and to goad them with, “What? You don’t like periwinkle? You don’t like me tie?” He would smile all the while, the most gentlemanly invitation to a fight most would ever see.
“Parker is a man we’ve worked with from time to time in New York,” Thelonious said. Parker was one of those men that people could never gauge his age; twenty-three or forty-three. He had jet black hair and a young face, but that face had far too many lines in it for a young man. With a large chin, and deep-set black eyes, he looked like a thug, but he wore what appeared to be an old tuxedo. No one questioned him about it.
“And this is Armstrong,” Thelonious said. He didn’t give any details or elaborate any further on the final man. Armstrong was that twenty-two year man that looked twelve. In many ways, he reminded people of the movie, Big. His suit was black, but seemed to be a couple of sizes too large for him. His tie was green with white and black pin stripes; the kind of tie a twelve year old borrows from his father for a symphonic band concert in the junior high gymnasium. The kind of tie one wears when that someone has never worn a tie before. And it was never tied properly, never pulled up all of the way, but not down enough to look as if he’d loosened it. No, just a sloppy twelve year old accountant in an oversized suit and his father’s tie.
“And I am Dr. Cortez,” Javier said. “I’ve been in the field on this project, but from here on out, I’ll be turning it over to you people and working in the lab with Mr. Coulter.”
“Doctor Coulter,” he corrected.
Cortez wasn’t sure if Coulter was a doctor at all, but he deferred so the meeting could get started.
“Doctor Coulter.”
Possible Villain Pics
Tanya came up with the bulk of our "rogues gallery." Michael did a Google Image search to match her descriptions. Roberts, Gert, Thelonious, Coltrane, and Parker were very specific, and brought up celebrities. Michael would usually toss celebrity pics, if for no other reason than prior knowledge of them predisposes how they'll act in his mind, thus limiting their potential as characters. But the writing had already begun, and you can't waste precious time when you're trying to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days!
Basie, Dizzy, and Ellington were all surprises, and the pictures really helped inform the characters.
Michael had come up with Raleigh Iago Coulter, Rollins, & Brubeck, and picked their older faces to stand in opposition to Basie, Dizzy, and Ellington.
Basie, Dizzy, and Ellington were all surprises, and the pictures really helped inform the characters.
Michael had come up with Raleigh Iago Coulter, Rollins, & Brubeck, and picked their older faces to stand in opposition to Basie, Dizzy, and Ellington.
Coulter stepped in front of both Cortez and Thelonious. “Usually, I would give your assignments to Mr. Thelonious or Mr. Coltrane, here. You would do your part, you would get paid, and we would part ways. But this is different.
“People, what we have here is monumental! It is ground breaking in the way Newton was ground breaking, in the way Oppenheimer was ground breaking!” Coltrane rolled his eyes. “We are going to change the world!” And then, quietly, “Leroy.”
Leroy Roberts cleared his throat. “Good afternoon, everyone.” Roberts wore a black suit and white shirt as well, but uncomfortably so. He was sweaty and the suit was rumpled, as if he’d slept in it. The tie was loosened and hung just a little lower than it should have. “Behind the… uh… glass, you see Patient Zero. She is the first non-killable… well… zombie.”
“Are you mad?” Dizzy asked.
“Um… no, I’m not mad. Are you mad?” Roberts answered, not quite understanding the British word for crazy.
“It’s real,” Gert broke in. Gert wore the black suit and white shirt, also, but more stylishly. She wore a shoestring, bolo tie, and somehow pulled it off. “Patient Zero is a one in a billion candidate. She can die again and again, and keep returning to her original zombie state. Now with the combination or her blood and structured formula virus, we can reproduce this effect again and again.”
“So…” Parker chimed. “You can make more and more dead people?”
“Hell, I can make more and more dead people,” Parker added. He pointed his finger like a gun at Parker. Coltrane laughed, then spoke up himself.
“All right, now, I don’t know if I believe any of this, but I’ve got two questions. One, you can make ‘zombies.’ So what? And two, what do we have to do with it?” Coulter stepped up.
“So what, you ask?”
“Mmm-hmm,” Coltrane said.
“What we are looking at here is taking, let’s say, a platoon of soldiers. Add our special ingredient, and now you have an army of men with their full mental faculties, with their complete military training, that will not die.” Coltrane looked over at Thelonious. Both were starting to believe it.
“They do not eat,” Coulter continued. “They do not sleep, they do not get tired. They fight the enemy, non-stop, day and night. They never give up. And if they’re ‘killed,’ they just get back up again. A bullet in the brain? You take it out, or perhaps they force it out, and the brain will repair itself. And they get back up and fight some more. Short of destroying the brain entirely, they cannot be stopped.
The room had gone completely silent.
“How do you defeat such an army?” Coulter asked. “You don’t.”
“Now how much would you pay?” Thelonious said, like an old infomercial, but no one was laughing.
“That’s right,” Coulter said. “Millions? Billions? Who knows! And this is only Phase One!”
“Phase One?” Cortez asked, speaking up for the first time.
“Yes, yes,” Coulter rambled, seeing he’d gone too far. Trying to deflect it, he carried on. “And what do I need you people for? This, obviously, is a very valuable property. There is lot of money on the line, and that investment needs to be protected.
“Starting tomorrow morning, Friday, I need you to break into two teams. Team A will guard this facility and Patient Zero. Team B will bring the formula and notes to the buyer, our generous benefactor.”
A silence hung over the room for a long time. Coulter finally broke it with, “Gentlemen?”
Thelonious stepped up.
“All right, I’ll take Team Bravo and handle the delivery. Coltrane – you lead Team Alpha here. Since you’ll have to defend the compound, you’ll need to set perimeters and posts immediately. You pick your team.”
Coltrane looked across the room. “I’ll let you keep your smash-n-grab team from before. Dr. Cortez has obviously seen a fight or two, if we need him. I’ll stay here with Parker, Armstrong, and King.”
Coltrane looked around.
“Hey,” he said. “Where’s King?”
-----------------------------------------------------------
The man who had become Javier Cortez, and would again some twelve years later, sat across from the woman who would become Zenobia Sinclair, at about the same time. Now, they were sitting in a café in Halifax, Nova Scotia. They were in Nova Scotia because inn keepers in Pelly Bay, Canada, frowned upon people shooting other people to death through the doors of their hotel room. The dead body in their closet had not been a treat, either.
“Technically,” Cortez said, “we’re the Bad Guys.” Zenobia smiled and sipped at a wonderful hot coffee with hazelnut cream. “We rob and we kill. And we’re paid well to do so. It’s a gift and a skill set.”
Zen raised an eyebrow at that.
“You can teach someone to read music and give them piano lessons for 10 years,” Cortez elaborated. “Some people will be okay, others will still be terrible. But a handful will be virtuosos.”
“So?” Zen said, sipping at her coffee. “Is there more to this fortune cookie?”
“Just know what you’re getting into,” Cortez said.”
“I’m IN already,” she said. “I’ve been in for two years!”
“Fine,” Cortez said, trying to not sound condescending. “What I’m saying is there is very little black and white in this line of work. And that’s a blessing, really. It’s all gray.” He took a drink from his coffee; black and sweet. “No one pays you a quarter of a million to kill a good person – a family man who never cheated on his taxes or his wife. No. Bad men pay us to end other bad men.”
“And women!” Zen broke in.
“Fine,” Cortez said, slightly exasperated. “And bad women, too. What I’m saying is ‘Good Men’ if they even exist – good people – don’t run in these circles. Good men who steal high tech gadgetry from their employers to sell? They’ve become bad men. That’s all. Bad men killing other bad men. And in the end, we all get the one thing, the only thing, that we all truly deserve.”
Zen looked up from her coffee and made a questioning face without saying anything.
“Death,” Cortez answered. “You could say we bring it earlier than intended. But then again, I don’t live in a universe where men and money can out power the will of a god that can create the universe and all life in it. I, myself, can’t possibly supersede or defeat the will of God. So then, by default, what we do… this is all ultimately allowed by God. Maybe not condoned, but allowed.”
Cortez drank again, satisfied for a moment. He’d made his peace long ago. Then he added, “That statement can either comfort you, or terrify you – you decide.”
-----------------------------------------------------------
An hour or so later, Cortez stepped into the big lab with Coulter, Roberts, and Gert. Coulter was standing on the small platform, writing the last of an equation series on the white board. “Coulter,” Cortez said, who looked up from his notes with squinted eyes. “Doctor Coulter, what did you mean this is only Phase One?” Coulter smiled wanly.
“Children!” he shouted, looking at Roberts and Gert. “Daddy and Daddy have to talk. Run along now!”
“Who was that green chick in Star Trek, Robbie?” Gert was saying.
“She was an Orion Slave Girl,” Mr. Roberts was responding as they exited the room. A mumble and then a faint, Yes! Yes! could be heard as the door closed behind them. Coulter smiled.
“Our benefactor is handsomely paying for Phase One, Dr. Cortez. Everything you see here. Your help included, of course. With your breakdown of the amino acids, we can reproduce the virus/serum from the smallest amount of Patient Zero’s blood. And with your continued help, I’m thinking we’ll be able to reproduce it entirely chemically.”
“Yes,” Cortez said. “And that is Phase Two?”
“Oh, goodness no! That will make the process faster and easier to reproduce, but the turn-around rate from human to zombie killing machine is so quick, that’s not really a concern for now. No, Phase Two will be using the nanobots not only to monitor the zombies, but to control them.”
“Control them!?” Cortez said.
“But of course, good doctor!” Coulter said pleasantly. “You can’t very well have unstoppable killing machines thinking for themselves, can you? What if they decide they’re fighting for the wrong side? What if they decide that zombies should rule everything? Who could stop them?”
Cortez nodded. “I hadn’t thought of that,” he said. “But it still leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Controlling them like that. They’re still human beings.”
“No, actually,” Coulter said matter of factly. “No they’re not.” And he was right again.
“Soon, Dr. Cortez, you’ll be rich beyond your wildest dreams! You can retire to South America, Paraguay, wherever you’d like!” Cortez nodded, as if mulling it over in his head.
“And that’s what this is all about for you, Coulter? The money?”
Coulter stepped down from platform and walked slowly but steadily across the room to stand in from of Cortez. He brought his hands together and smiled that sly, evil smile of his.
“No, of course not,” he said. “It’s about Phase Three. And taking over the world.”
-----------------------------------------------------------
Corner was never sure why his mother had named him that. But she always seemed to smile when she said it, and that made him happy. After awhile, the other kids got bored of picking on him for it, and left him alone entirely.
They didn’t have much money, but since his mom’d gotten a new job, they had a little more. One day, on her way home from work, Corner’s mother, Mary, saw a garage sale. Corner would be eight in a couple of weeks, so she looked around. She talked to the old couple for nearly a half hour before she realized the time. She picked up book on magic tricks for 25 cents, thanked them, and brought it home for her son.
Corner loved it! Inside of a month, he’d perfected every trick in the book, and so Mary Angela Piccalino took her son back to the house of the garage sale. Mr. Oursler offered to give young Corner magic a few magic lessons on Saturdays. “Can I, Mom?” he’d asked, and she said yes.
The first Saturday, Mr. Oursler showed him sleight of hand. He showed him how to make coins appear and disappear, and how to fold a piece of paper, put it in your hand, and make it disappear!
On the second Saturday, Mr. Oursler had set up a little stage in the garage, with five or six folding chairs in front of it. Mrs. Oursler was the audience member. Corner did the tricks he knew, and Mrs. Oursler clapped for him. Then, at one point, Mrs. Oursler blinked at him, slowly, and with both eyes.
“Do you know what that means?” Mr. Oursler asked.
“She likes me?” Corner said. Mr. Oursler laughed.
“Well, maybe. But she’s telling you ‘I’m in on the gag. I’ll be your partner.’ But without saying it out loud. If you agree, you blink back, nice and slow.” Corner looked confused, so Mr. Oursler elaborated. “You ask the lady in front of the blinker to look at something in her purse, but not to show it to you. You can guess what it is in three guesses.”
“I can?”
“Sure! You start rattlin’ off things of what it might be, like you’re thinkin’ out loud, before saying ‘My first guess is ____!’ As you’re namin’ things off, watch your blinker. She’ll blink once for yes, and twice for no.”
“Wowee!” Corner said. “That’s sneaky!” Mr. Oursler chuckled.
“If she touches her face, you follow that hand. She’ll pull out that same thing, or show where she hid it. You just have to make up your signals ahead of time, and pay close attention!”
Mr. Oursler had been a magician once, and maybe a con man, too! He said the word was ‘grifter.’ Corner thought this was all fantastic!
Corner’s mother did not.
And there would be no more free lessons from Mr. Oursler.
-----------------------------------------------------------
The day before, Wednesday, Zenobia Sinclair stood in the back of a Federated Delivery Service truck in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. She’d tracked the box they’d stuffed Corner in three states west. The driver knocked out cold, she smiled as she pried open the wooden crate to find… nothing.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Corner Johnson woke up in the Federated Delivery Service warehouse in Iowa City, Iowa, on Tuesday. They’d transferred his crate from a west bound truck on Route 80, to a north bound truck. It was after midnight, so the truck would sit till 6:00 AM, when the morning drivers arrived, and someone took the truck north on 380 to Cedar Rapids, then finally Waterloo, the final stop.
It stunk inside the crate. In his right pocket was a small LED flashlight and $500 in cash. Looking around the crate, he found a plastic-wrapped package, a hammer, and a crow bar.
Even with the tools, and even with holes drilled in the side of the crate, it took Corner over an hour to break himself out of the box. Twice, he had been certain he was going to suffocate before doing so.
He stood and stretched, and it felt good. He rubbed his temple, as a headache begin a slow but sure to escalate pounding in his temple. There was a pain in his right hand, a dull throbbing he’d felt for a while, but he didn’t have time for that now. With that, he remembered the gunman at the hotel. He slid his hand down his body and into his left pocket. In it, he found what he’d expected – a small, black box. He pressed the power button and the small screen came to life. It said:
Harris, Tasha
593 miles, 9 hours 52 mins
Arrive: Willowton, Ohio
Directions: Text? Map?
Corner looked at his watch and tried to make sense of the date. Had he been asleep for two days? That couldn’t be possible. Then he realized that the smell – the overpowering stench was not the box – it was him. He had, in fact, shat his own pants.
The plastic-wrapped package was actually a complete set of clothes and the gun Zenobia had given him. And so, he cleaned up as best he could in the restroom, and put on the new clothes. He put his old clothes back in the crate and resealed it. He went truck to truck, finding the keys on the visor of the second one. He opened the garage door, hoped that didn’t set off an alarm, drove out. Not to be anal or anything, but just in case, he got out of the truck, hit the ‘close’ button on the garage door, and ducked under it before it closed.
Then, Corner Johnson got into his stolen Federated Delivery Service truck and started his ten hour journey to save Tasha Harris.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Javier Cortez was liking himself less and less all the time. But he was liking his boss, Coulter, even less than that. And so it was just shortly after midnight that he found himself looking in on a sleeping Tasha Harris, and wishing none of this had ever happened.
How would he break her out of the stronger facility, and with two teams of mercenaries just down the hall? What would he do with her once they had escaped? How would he feed her brains once a month?
He had no answers. And so, he wandered down the hall, past Hangar 18 (where he could hear “Toad the Wet Sprocket? Are you certifiably insane? Why not add Yello to the mix? You and Ferris Buehler can sing ‘Oh Yeah’ till he gets a career again…”), down the serpentine hallway to Hangar 7 and his room.
Sleep.
Sleep would sort everything out.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Tasha awoke shortly after midnight. She felt like someone had been watching her, and that always woke her. But she hadn’t been sleeping, had she? She closed her eyes, she rested, but it had just occurred to her. In the last four days, she had not slept at all.
It wasn’t this somewhat creepy realization that bothered her, though. It was her mother’s voice that made her jump.
“It will be okay,” it said, and she could see her now, standing, impossibly, in her cell. Impossible because 1) she was locked in a holding cell in some secret facility who knows where, and 2) her mother was dead. “It will be okay, Tasha. Trust your enemies.”
Tasha rubbed her eyes and looked again. Was that her mother, younger than she ever remembered seeing her, standing right there?
“Trust my enemies?” she said, repeating her mother’s words. “Coulter?”
“No not him!” her mother barked. “He’s evil. What’s wrong with you!?”
Yeah, it was definitely her mother.
-----------------------------------------------------------
(34,459 words)
“People, what we have here is monumental! It is ground breaking in the way Newton was ground breaking, in the way Oppenheimer was ground breaking!” Coltrane rolled his eyes. “We are going to change the world!” And then, quietly, “Leroy.”
Leroy Roberts cleared his throat. “Good afternoon, everyone.” Roberts wore a black suit and white shirt as well, but uncomfortably so. He was sweaty and the suit was rumpled, as if he’d slept in it. The tie was loosened and hung just a little lower than it should have. “Behind the… uh… glass, you see Patient Zero. She is the first non-killable… well… zombie.”
“Are you mad?” Dizzy asked.
“Um… no, I’m not mad. Are you mad?” Roberts answered, not quite understanding the British word for crazy.
“It’s real,” Gert broke in. Gert wore the black suit and white shirt, also, but more stylishly. She wore a shoestring, bolo tie, and somehow pulled it off. “Patient Zero is a one in a billion candidate. She can die again and again, and keep returning to her original zombie state. Now with the combination or her blood and structured formula virus, we can reproduce this effect again and again.”
“So…” Parker chimed. “You can make more and more dead people?”
“Hell, I can make more and more dead people,” Parker added. He pointed his finger like a gun at Parker. Coltrane laughed, then spoke up himself.
“All right, now, I don’t know if I believe any of this, but I’ve got two questions. One, you can make ‘zombies.’ So what? And two, what do we have to do with it?” Coulter stepped up.
“So what, you ask?”
“Mmm-hmm,” Coltrane said.
“What we are looking at here is taking, let’s say, a platoon of soldiers. Add our special ingredient, and now you have an army of men with their full mental faculties, with their complete military training, that will not die.” Coltrane looked over at Thelonious. Both were starting to believe it.
“They do not eat,” Coulter continued. “They do not sleep, they do not get tired. They fight the enemy, non-stop, day and night. They never give up. And if they’re ‘killed,’ they just get back up again. A bullet in the brain? You take it out, or perhaps they force it out, and the brain will repair itself. And they get back up and fight some more. Short of destroying the brain entirely, they cannot be stopped.
The room had gone completely silent.
“How do you defeat such an army?” Coulter asked. “You don’t.”
“Now how much would you pay?” Thelonious said, like an old infomercial, but no one was laughing.
“That’s right,” Coulter said. “Millions? Billions? Who knows! And this is only Phase One!”
“Phase One?” Cortez asked, speaking up for the first time.
“Yes, yes,” Coulter rambled, seeing he’d gone too far. Trying to deflect it, he carried on. “And what do I need you people for? This, obviously, is a very valuable property. There is lot of money on the line, and that investment needs to be protected.
“Starting tomorrow morning, Friday, I need you to break into two teams. Team A will guard this facility and Patient Zero. Team B will bring the formula and notes to the buyer, our generous benefactor.”
A silence hung over the room for a long time. Coulter finally broke it with, “Gentlemen?”
Thelonious stepped up.
“All right, I’ll take Team Bravo and handle the delivery. Coltrane – you lead Team Alpha here. Since you’ll have to defend the compound, you’ll need to set perimeters and posts immediately. You pick your team.”
Coltrane looked across the room. “I’ll let you keep your smash-n-grab team from before. Dr. Cortez has obviously seen a fight or two, if we need him. I’ll stay here with Parker, Armstrong, and King.”
Coltrane looked around.
“Hey,” he said. “Where’s King?”
-----------------------------------------------------------
The man who had become Javier Cortez, and would again some twelve years later, sat across from the woman who would become Zenobia Sinclair, at about the same time. Now, they were sitting in a café in Halifax, Nova Scotia. They were in Nova Scotia because inn keepers in Pelly Bay, Canada, frowned upon people shooting other people to death through the doors of their hotel room. The dead body in their closet had not been a treat, either.
“Technically,” Cortez said, “we’re the Bad Guys.” Zenobia smiled and sipped at a wonderful hot coffee with hazelnut cream. “We rob and we kill. And we’re paid well to do so. It’s a gift and a skill set.”
Zen raised an eyebrow at that.
“You can teach someone to read music and give them piano lessons for 10 years,” Cortez elaborated. “Some people will be okay, others will still be terrible. But a handful will be virtuosos.”
“So?” Zen said, sipping at her coffee. “Is there more to this fortune cookie?”
“Just know what you’re getting into,” Cortez said.”
“I’m IN already,” she said. “I’ve been in for two years!”
“Fine,” Cortez said, trying to not sound condescending. “What I’m saying is there is very little black and white in this line of work. And that’s a blessing, really. It’s all gray.” He took a drink from his coffee; black and sweet. “No one pays you a quarter of a million to kill a good person – a family man who never cheated on his taxes or his wife. No. Bad men pay us to end other bad men.”
“And women!” Zen broke in.
“Fine,” Cortez said, slightly exasperated. “And bad women, too. What I’m saying is ‘Good Men’ if they even exist – good people – don’t run in these circles. Good men who steal high tech gadgetry from their employers to sell? They’ve become bad men. That’s all. Bad men killing other bad men. And in the end, we all get the one thing, the only thing, that we all truly deserve.”
Zen looked up from her coffee and made a questioning face without saying anything.
“Death,” Cortez answered. “You could say we bring it earlier than intended. But then again, I don’t live in a universe where men and money can out power the will of a god that can create the universe and all life in it. I, myself, can’t possibly supersede or defeat the will of God. So then, by default, what we do… this is all ultimately allowed by God. Maybe not condoned, but allowed.”
Cortez drank again, satisfied for a moment. He’d made his peace long ago. Then he added, “That statement can either comfort you, or terrify you – you decide.”
-----------------------------------------------------------
An hour or so later, Cortez stepped into the big lab with Coulter, Roberts, and Gert. Coulter was standing on the small platform, writing the last of an equation series on the white board. “Coulter,” Cortez said, who looked up from his notes with squinted eyes. “Doctor Coulter, what did you mean this is only Phase One?” Coulter smiled wanly.
“Children!” he shouted, looking at Roberts and Gert. “Daddy and Daddy have to talk. Run along now!”
“Who was that green chick in Star Trek, Robbie?” Gert was saying.
“She was an Orion Slave Girl,” Mr. Roberts was responding as they exited the room. A mumble and then a faint, Yes! Yes! could be heard as the door closed behind them. Coulter smiled.
“Our benefactor is handsomely paying for Phase One, Dr. Cortez. Everything you see here. Your help included, of course. With your breakdown of the amino acids, we can reproduce the virus/serum from the smallest amount of Patient Zero’s blood. And with your continued help, I’m thinking we’ll be able to reproduce it entirely chemically.”
“Yes,” Cortez said. “And that is Phase Two?”
“Oh, goodness no! That will make the process faster and easier to reproduce, but the turn-around rate from human to zombie killing machine is so quick, that’s not really a concern for now. No, Phase Two will be using the nanobots not only to monitor the zombies, but to control them.”
“Control them!?” Cortez said.
“But of course, good doctor!” Coulter said pleasantly. “You can’t very well have unstoppable killing machines thinking for themselves, can you? What if they decide they’re fighting for the wrong side? What if they decide that zombies should rule everything? Who could stop them?”
Cortez nodded. “I hadn’t thought of that,” he said. “But it still leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Controlling them like that. They’re still human beings.”
“No, actually,” Coulter said matter of factly. “No they’re not.” And he was right again.
“Soon, Dr. Cortez, you’ll be rich beyond your wildest dreams! You can retire to South America, Paraguay, wherever you’d like!” Cortez nodded, as if mulling it over in his head.
“And that’s what this is all about for you, Coulter? The money?”
Coulter stepped down from platform and walked slowly but steadily across the room to stand in from of Cortez. He brought his hands together and smiled that sly, evil smile of his.
“No, of course not,” he said. “It’s about Phase Three. And taking over the world.”
-----------------------------------------------------------
Corner was never sure why his mother had named him that. But she always seemed to smile when she said it, and that made him happy. After awhile, the other kids got bored of picking on him for it, and left him alone entirely.
They didn’t have much money, but since his mom’d gotten a new job, they had a little more. One day, on her way home from work, Corner’s mother, Mary, saw a garage sale. Corner would be eight in a couple of weeks, so she looked around. She talked to the old couple for nearly a half hour before she realized the time. She picked up book on magic tricks for 25 cents, thanked them, and brought it home for her son.
Corner loved it! Inside of a month, he’d perfected every trick in the book, and so Mary Angela Piccalino took her son back to the house of the garage sale. Mr. Oursler offered to give young Corner magic a few magic lessons on Saturdays. “Can I, Mom?” he’d asked, and she said yes.
The first Saturday, Mr. Oursler showed him sleight of hand. He showed him how to make coins appear and disappear, and how to fold a piece of paper, put it in your hand, and make it disappear!
On the second Saturday, Mr. Oursler had set up a little stage in the garage, with five or six folding chairs in front of it. Mrs. Oursler was the audience member. Corner did the tricks he knew, and Mrs. Oursler clapped for him. Then, at one point, Mrs. Oursler blinked at him, slowly, and with both eyes.
“Do you know what that means?” Mr. Oursler asked.
“She likes me?” Corner said. Mr. Oursler laughed.
“Well, maybe. But she’s telling you ‘I’m in on the gag. I’ll be your partner.’ But without saying it out loud. If you agree, you blink back, nice and slow.” Corner looked confused, so Mr. Oursler elaborated. “You ask the lady in front of the blinker to look at something in her purse, but not to show it to you. You can guess what it is in three guesses.”
“I can?”
“Sure! You start rattlin’ off things of what it might be, like you’re thinkin’ out loud, before saying ‘My first guess is ____!’ As you’re namin’ things off, watch your blinker. She’ll blink once for yes, and twice for no.”
“Wowee!” Corner said. “That’s sneaky!” Mr. Oursler chuckled.
“If she touches her face, you follow that hand. She’ll pull out that same thing, or show where she hid it. You just have to make up your signals ahead of time, and pay close attention!”
Mr. Oursler had been a magician once, and maybe a con man, too! He said the word was ‘grifter.’ Corner thought this was all fantastic!
Corner’s mother did not.
And there would be no more free lessons from Mr. Oursler.
-----------------------------------------------------------
The day before, Wednesday, Zenobia Sinclair stood in the back of a Federated Delivery Service truck in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. She’d tracked the box they’d stuffed Corner in three states west. The driver knocked out cold, she smiled as she pried open the wooden crate to find… nothing.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Corner Johnson woke up in the Federated Delivery Service warehouse in Iowa City, Iowa, on Tuesday. They’d transferred his crate from a west bound truck on Route 80, to a north bound truck. It was after midnight, so the truck would sit till 6:00 AM, when the morning drivers arrived, and someone took the truck north on 380 to Cedar Rapids, then finally Waterloo, the final stop.
It stunk inside the crate. In his right pocket was a small LED flashlight and $500 in cash. Looking around the crate, he found a plastic-wrapped package, a hammer, and a crow bar.
Even with the tools, and even with holes drilled in the side of the crate, it took Corner over an hour to break himself out of the box. Twice, he had been certain he was going to suffocate before doing so.
He stood and stretched, and it felt good. He rubbed his temple, as a headache begin a slow but sure to escalate pounding in his temple. There was a pain in his right hand, a dull throbbing he’d felt for a while, but he didn’t have time for that now. With that, he remembered the gunman at the hotel. He slid his hand down his body and into his left pocket. In it, he found what he’d expected – a small, black box. He pressed the power button and the small screen came to life. It said:
Harris, Tasha
593 miles, 9 hours 52 mins
Arrive: Willowton, Ohio
Directions: Text? Map?
Corner looked at his watch and tried to make sense of the date. Had he been asleep for two days? That couldn’t be possible. Then he realized that the smell – the overpowering stench was not the box – it was him. He had, in fact, shat his own pants.
The plastic-wrapped package was actually a complete set of clothes and the gun Zenobia had given him. And so, he cleaned up as best he could in the restroom, and put on the new clothes. He put his old clothes back in the crate and resealed it. He went truck to truck, finding the keys on the visor of the second one. He opened the garage door, hoped that didn’t set off an alarm, drove out. Not to be anal or anything, but just in case, he got out of the truck, hit the ‘close’ button on the garage door, and ducked under it before it closed.
Then, Corner Johnson got into his stolen Federated Delivery Service truck and started his ten hour journey to save Tasha Harris.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Javier Cortez was liking himself less and less all the time. But he was liking his boss, Coulter, even less than that. And so it was just shortly after midnight that he found himself looking in on a sleeping Tasha Harris, and wishing none of this had ever happened.
How would he break her out of the stronger facility, and with two teams of mercenaries just down the hall? What would he do with her once they had escaped? How would he feed her brains once a month?
He had no answers. And so, he wandered down the hall, past Hangar 18 (where he could hear “Toad the Wet Sprocket? Are you certifiably insane? Why not add Yello to the mix? You and Ferris Buehler can sing ‘Oh Yeah’ till he gets a career again…”), down the serpentine hallway to Hangar 7 and his room.
Sleep.
Sleep would sort everything out.
-----------------------------------------------------------
Tasha awoke shortly after midnight. She felt like someone had been watching her, and that always woke her. But she hadn’t been sleeping, had she? She closed her eyes, she rested, but it had just occurred to her. In the last four days, she had not slept at all.
It wasn’t this somewhat creepy realization that bothered her, though. It was her mother’s voice that made her jump.
“It will be okay,” it said, and she could see her now, standing, impossibly, in her cell. Impossible because 1) she was locked in a holding cell in some secret facility who knows where, and 2) her mother was dead. “It will be okay, Tasha. Trust your enemies.”
Tasha rubbed her eyes and looked again. Was that her mother, younger than she ever remembered seeing her, standing right there?
“Trust my enemies?” she said, repeating her mother’s words. “Coulter?”
“No not him!” her mother barked. “He’s evil. What’s wrong with you!?”
Yeah, it was definitely her mother.
-----------------------------------------------------------
(34,459 words)
Michael writing...
Copyright © 2011 by P.M. Bradshaw & Tanya Ellenburg-Kimmet