short timers: Episode 3a

Bloodhound

Detective Wallace Fisher sat at his desk, looking at the morning paper. The headline was huge bold black letters: PAPA VINCENT FOUND MURDERED!

Oh S**t. He thought, scanning the paper for the more important pieces of the article.

His head was splitting from a Scotch hangover from the night before. The noise of the precinct wasn’t helping. He tossed the paper down and washed four aspirin down with a slug of luke warm day old coffee. It oozed across the back of his tongue like an oil spill.

The noise was killing him. Cell phone ring tones ripped through his skull in alternating waves of pain and annoyance. The desk phones did the same. He could hear the Captain losing his mind in the office just down from him. Wallace needed some quiet time. Maybe a walk would do him some good.

He heard a tin can voice from across the room call his name, and Wallace cringed.

“Fish!” The voice hollered, using his barely tolerated nickname.

“What?” He didn’t hide the annoyance from his voice.

“You heard the news, yeah?”

“Which news, Papa Vincent? Or did you finally lose your virginity?” He responded.

“Vincent.” The owner of the voice, one Detective Jason Bowden, was a consistent thorn in Wallace’s side.

“Wasn’t he, like, one of your major suspects or something?” He asked. The sarcastic ribbing was going to start in earnest any second. Jason was just waiting for more backup from some of the other detectives.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah. Ain’t you got a body to go clean up somewhere you loud mouth little s**t?” Wallace said, getting up from his desk. He was simply not in the mood for any Mickey Mouse bull s**t this morning. He grabbed his paper and left the precinct, putting his cell phone on silent and heading for a walk in the streets. The early morning sun bounced off the shimmering tower of glass on the building in front of him. Cars rippled across the reflection. He saw a tiny distorted vision of himself walk out of the building, newspaper under his arm. Even at this distance he looked a little haggard.

The noise of the street was no less than the noise of the inside of the precinct, but at least he had room to move around. The sounds of the city had at least a slightly more comforting feel, and didn’t feel like someone were banging the pipes in his head. He needed to think, uninterrupted for a few minutes about the events of last night.

Wallace walked the sidewalks, looking for a good place to plant his butt and think.

The killing of Papa Vincent wasn’t really any surprise to him, he’d felt something was coming a few months ago. He wasn’t a terribly superstitious guy, but he had his moments of intuition. But his belief that Vincent was headed for a bad end wasn’t based on superstition or intuition. It was based on the fact that over the course of about six months, the population of the local syndicate had been literally hacked in half. And it wasn’t just little druggy thugs that were being killed… Full fledged lieutenants were being wiped out.

The FBI had come in months ago when a couple of their informants had been killed. Ever since then Wallace really didn’t have much of a job. He shuffled his papers around, and sniffed around where he could. But mostly the FBI kept him out of the loop on any proceedings with the syndicate. It annoyed him a little, but it had given him a sort of unofficial vacation. He worked Organized Crime Investigation.

The homicide division…now that was a completely different story. Those boys were busy as hell. Everyone believed it was a gangland war, but Wallace didn’t buy it. But now that he was cut out of the information loop with the FBI, there was no way to tell for sure. Whatever was going on though was seriously pissing some people off, and leaving a trail of syndicate bodies all over the landscape.

Wallace was bored with worrying about it, and had decided to just let it run it’s course. He wasn’t concerned with advancement, and not really interested in being a city cop anymore. Mostly he wanted to take his tiny savings and disappear somewhere out west. Learn how to cook, get out of the city, stay out of his ex-wife’s hair, and collect coupons. He thought he could maybe find work in a small town being a constable or something, writing parking tickets and picking up dead animals in the road maybe. But he didn’t think that he’d even have the patience for that. Maybe he’d go work a cross walk somewhere….bullshit.

Who the f**k was he kidding anyway?

Wallace was pissed. And curious. He was a good cop. He had a natural instinct for the job, hunting people down was what he did. He didn’t care that half of them got off on bail, or only did short stints in prison. He didn’t care if the judicial system fucked up and turned a guilty man loose. The odds were generally in his favor. Statistically speaking, a person who committed one crime was going to commit another. And if they got off free once, they were that much more likely to think they could do it again. If they did, then he’d go find them again.

Wallace appreciated the criminals of the world giving him something to do. Because this was what he lived for. If he was bored of anything it was that someone was killing off all of his targets. Naturally that led to another somewhat interesting idea for him though, tracking down the men who had killed Vincent.

Now that would be fun.

Wallace had a talent. A talent that he trusted implicitly… He could find people.

They didn’t have to be criminals, but they were a little easier to find if they were, simply because Wallace wanted to find them.

The pain in the a*s about being a detective was not finding the person who committed a crime, but getting them convicted. But that was usually someone else’s business anyway. He had no real interest in lawyers or the jobs they did. Deals, plea bargains, judicial rulings…all of these things led to the unhinging of justice. It was a sinking ship, with little hope of repair. After fifteen years on the force, Wallace had come to the conclusion that the only thing that kept the barge afloat, was the general decency of the human species. But that judgment could only be stated from an ignorant point of view. Anyone who knew the true face of crime and justice-people who worked in those realms-understood that the face of the criminal general wore a crooked arrogant smile. And this system of judgment, although a generally good idea, was rife with its own terrible flaws, placed there by the very same thought that designed it. Moreover, the other fatal flaw to the justice system lay in its consumptive need of two things; money, and people. Most lawyers were rich, or at least well off. Same with judges. And it was rare in Wallace’s view to see a crime committed that didn’t have a victim. This all lay in the realm of violent crime of course, the other systems of judgment basically illustrated the need of the people of the world to be refereed. Which, as with divorce settlement and real estate, just exposed the lack of responsibility of the average person when it came to maintaining honorable agreements. Someone was always trying to find the easy way through a transaction…a way to get something for free. At the cost of someone else’s work ethic.

He continued his walk, his mind ran full speed over the death of Papa Vincent, and the problem his death presented to the city. The man was crooked as any other Mafioso crime lord the city had ever seen. Everyone knew it, no one could prove it. And if they could, they didn’t live long. So he stood out on his balcony, flapping his lips, flipping the bird, and unceremoniously pissing on the legal systems of the world. He didn’t care, and everybody knew it. All the odds were in his favor, because the odds had been bought. He hadn‘t done the buying, his predecessors had long before. Creating a silver spoon that Vincent had sucked the shine off of in a big way. All the care taken by the original bosses of the old world was lost on this spoiled little s**t. But because the business of Organized Crime was so huge, any damage that Vincent could do was slight at best. It wasn’t a foolproof system but it was damn close.  

The morning sun glanced through the towering buildings, and beamed brilliantly off the glass and cement monoliths. Wallace kept a steady pace, finding his zone. His mind wandering. Sniffing. Catching the scent of the city. The combined skill and energy it must have taken to sprout this city mesmerized him. Even knowing the history of the city was not as fascinating as looking at one brick, or one iron beam, or one covered manhole in the ground and realizing how many people in their concerted efforts over time had made that thing possible. It was that idea that gave Wallace some sense of hope. He didn’t mind the idea of people being like an ant colony. Because when you looked further back from the blind and busy individuals, you could see all the marvelous things that a handful of determined individuals could produce over the course of their lives. They just needed someone to be their eyes, and give them the purpose to move forward. Sometimes that was Justice, sometimes that was crime. Sometimes it was just putting food on the table so they could feed their families. The eyes needed to understand the tragedy built in the system, and look at the horrors without flinching. The eyes needed to see the Vincent’s of the world, and understand that they too served a purpose to the ant hive. And if they served no purpose, surgically remove them. But whose eyes were open to the movement of the ant hill? Wallace didn’t know. But it was an itch that was driving him mad. All he could do was guess, and walk….sniffing as it were. Again, he trusted his nose.

Whoever killed Vincent must have been damn smart, and well armed. They must have somehow been covered by some governmental law or secrecy. Papa Vincent was deeply entrenched in international business systems, including intelligence. All organized crime

syndicates were. There was a long history of criminals who handled government dirty work, so the politicians could keep their hands clean. Across the planet this was a universal truth. Even though the idea tread into the no man’s land of conspiracy theory, it was still less and idea, and more like an unspoken fact. Period.

Certain government agencies of this country would definitely be pissed.  

Wallace would occasionally check around himself, to see where he was, but ultimately he was on autopilot. His talent required his trust in it.

He was headed into low town. The rougher part of the metro.

This didn’t surprise him either. Though he felt the first twinge of nervousness, and checked his weapon.

He’d walked several miles, and knew that he’d probably walk several more before the day was over.

Someone must have had a very good reason to want Vincent dead, but Wallace couldn’t think what that would be. For the most part, despite being a brutal b*****d, Vincent had been comparatively tame to other men who had been leaders of the Syndicate. He’d followed that outmoded idea that a crime boss should be a type of Robin Hood figure to the community. He’d donated millions to churches and schools, probably for tax purposes, but that didn’t matter too much. He’d set up college funds. Set up financial firms, and generally seemed to try to look out for the little guy trying to get big. It was generally understood however, that if the little guy should actually manage to get big, he’d have to pay Vincent not only a finders fee, but probably a certain percentage of gross income. That was just the way it worked. And sometimes it really did work. It was more honorable than many of the other systems made available to the public, especially from privatized industry. The truth was that sometimes the Syndicate had acted more honorable than many of the legitimate businesses, and most of the time more honorable than the government.

There was the drug trade though, and that usually pissed Wallace off. He’d seen some good people turn to drug zombies. He’d seen good people be killed by drug zombies. The sex trade wasn’t much better, and often times the two disciplines (if you could call them disciplines) went hand in hand.

Vincent had been a huge importer/exporter of flesh and chemicals ever since he took up the throne. He still imposed a street tax in some places, and regularly dabbled in fraud, extortion, and murder. Loan sharking was a big one. Gambling was another. Again, the two trades were usually seen skipping along together, like pre-teen school girls dancing in front of a pedophile ward, holding hands and making sure their skirts bounced high. Wallace called it the criminal ‘one-two punch’. Hook and slice. Draw them in with greed and vice, and hack them apart for everything they were worth.

Christ people could be stupid.

Wallace checked his location again, and realized he’d walked nearly ten miles into a part of town that was not very friendly to cops. He checked his weapon again, and started to pay a little closer attention to the faces he saw as he walked through the streets.

Most of the eyes were bright and aware. There were far fewer drug zombies on the streets than he’d seen before. He watched to street corners, looking for groups of skinny men in baggy clothes. He didn’t see any at all. Which was very strange. Then again he wasn’t exactly dressed for a walk through the slums, a formerly expensive sports coat and khaki pants were usually tell tale signs of a street clothes cop. Wallace was a stereotypical looking cop, but not necessarily a stereotypical acting cop. But the look alone was usually enough to send the little punks running like a light turned on in a roach infested apartment.

He continued his walk, stopping in a corner mart with thick bars on the doors to buy a bottled water and a small bag of chips for breakfast. He’d been walking for a long time. Getting closer…Getting closer in his mind too.

Who could possibly benefit from killing Vincent? He was a known quantity, and generally harmless to most of the world. His currency was the dredges of the world, noone of consequence. He traded the desperate and the stupid, and took his advantages when he could. He worked with the FBI occasionally, giving up a few of his lieutenants for amnesty and information. He was watched constantly, but only for monitoring purposes. The only people who would have anything to fear from the man would be street thugs who’d tried to double cross him, or his own people who needed to be disciplined. So who could benefit? It was long thought that Vincent was trying to move into legitimacy, could that have caused some anger? Why?

Someone with a grudge? There was no end to the amount of bodies left in the wake of the man. And undoubtedly there were a few people in the world who wanted Vincent’s head on their wall, even if for no other purpose than revenge.

Bingo. He felt it click in his mind.

Revenge? Really? With that kind of resources to infiltrate Vincent’s stronghold, murder every individual (well armed individuals to be sure) in the place, and not be tracked? Who the hell had that kind of skill? A rival? Nah. Vincent had usually been pretty polite to his rivals. He’d buy them off before he would try for intimidation. For the most part the man had been a coward. He’d pick on people far, far, smaller than him in the school yard before taking on someone his own size.

It had to be more personal.

But who?

Wallace looked around again. He’d crossed the boundary into the industrial part of town. A heavy looking cement building sat in front of him.

Hmm.

He looked behind him, then looked to the left and right. He didn’t see anything, or feel anything.

Nope, whatever he was looking for was right in front of him. In that building. He stared at it for a long time. This is where he usually found the most frustrating aspects of his talent. He could find people, but he couldn’t find the reason. He couldn’t figure out the ‘why’ of it, just by looking at where a person stood. In order to do that, he would have to go knock on the door.

….hmm.

Morgan felt the attention through the Field. It was a little like that feeling of being watched. The hair on the back of his arms and neck stood up and a little alarm in the back of his mind produced a steady insistent beep. He jogged lightly out of the gym, and over to his control room.

He passed his wrist across the sensor and sat down. The main control screen lit up and bathed his face in yellow light. He was still in the Field, checking the direction of the source of the attention. He zoomed out of the complex, commanding his awareness out of his body, and out of the building.

He saw a bright blue silhouetted shape standing on the street corner just outside the building! It was one man.

He clicked several keys on the console and brought up a camera feed. He looked at the man in the video feed. It was high, and angled down, but there was plenty of shape and form with which to identify him. Morgan clicked a few more keys, commanding the computer to search for the stranger’s identity.

“Who the f**k are you and what do you want?” He asked the video panel. He heard and felt two other people coming to join him from down the hall.

The other Short Timer’s weren’t aware of Morgan’s ability to access the Field on his own yet, and he wondered if he’d inadvertently fired off an alarm to them without realizing what he was doing. But it appeared everyone was now aware that someone was outside their door, and that Morgan was not pleased about it. Morgan heard footsteps coming into the room.

“Who is it?” Ed stood behind Morgan, the yellow glow of the computer console instantly turned his deep set eyes to glowing embers.

“I don’t know. But I’m finding out.” Morgan said.

“I can save you the trouble.” The light voice of Stella startled Morgan a little. He hadn’t expected her to be there.

“What do you mean? Do you know this guy?” Morgan asked. Ed had turned around to look at her, Jance just walked in the room behind her.

“Yep.” She said. “That’s Detective Wallace Fisher.”

“You’re shitting me right?” Ed said, looking back at the console. “He’s a f*****g cop?”

“Yep. A damn good cop. He’s the only one to ever get close to catching me. In truth, he did catch me, and could have turned my life into hell. He walked in on me in the middle of a jack, dangling above a piece of jewelry worth about three million dollars.”

“Jesus,” Jance said, “What happened?”

“I don’t know why, but he just turned around and walked away.” She said.

Morgan stopped and turned around in his chair. He stared up at three different sets of glowing eyes. There was no sign of Jimmy though, or Tsang.

“Seriously?” He asked Stella.

“Seriously.” She replied.

Morgan turned back around, studying the screen very carefully. Studying the man in it very carefully.

…hmmm.

Yeah, he thought, hmmm is right.

Morgan was hoping that he wouldn’t have to kill this character, but he wasn’t sure if he had much of a choice. Granted he was only staring at the building, what could he possibly know?

“This is an interesting case Morgan.” Jance said.

“No s**t?” Morgan responded. Letting the sarcasm drip a little at the understatement.

“I think we’re looking at someone who can naturally access the Field, and has found a way to use it.”

“Well, whatever.” Morgan said. “As much as I’d love to give him to you to study, if he continues to stare at this complex like that, he’d better get really good at running. I’m giving him about ten seconds, then Stella is going to go out and get him.”

At about nine and a half seconds, Wallace Fisher turned around and walked away. They could all still feel his lingering interest in the complex, but they could all feel his forced detatchment in it. He knew that there was nothing that he could do.

“Stella.” Morgan said, turning around again to face the short black haired woman. She eyed him carefully.

“Why do you think he didn’t burn you?” He asked her.

She thought for a moment.

“I think he liked my a*s.” She said, and turned around, presenting the subject anatomy. “Also I don’t think he was interested in arresting me, he just wanted the chase.” She turned back around and looked thoughtful. “He might have been drunk too. It was really late, and I highly doubt he was on the clock. But it freaked me out. I burned a couple of identities, and liquidated a lot of assets to make sure that I was clean when I went on that job. There was no way I could have been tracked. But no s**t, there I am dangling from the ceiling, just reaching down through the glass, and there that f****r stands. Bigger than s**t. Just grinning at me.” She paused for a second, remembering the look of Wallace that night.

“I did a lot of research on him after that. Partially because I figured he would burn me, and I wanted to give my lawyers some ammo against him. And partially because I was really curious about how he found me. He’s a freak though, that’s for sure. He’s done some great things for other people in the department, but nothing really huge for himself. Huge drug busts were accomplished because he was on the case. A couple of nasty political murders, and some brilliant cold cases completed. But he was never the lead investigator. Never the guy to get the glory. But if you look underneath the surface, he was the talent. I don’t think he’s ever really worked larceny, which was what caused me to disregard him after about six months of playing hide and seek with him. I was hiding, but he wasn’t seeking. I think he’s a cop for the sport of it, not for the kill.” Stella could have continued on, but decided she’d better not. She’d taken a long time to eradicate the fear that Wallace had placed in her from that night. She’d almost retired to another country, or given up the thieving bit all together. Better to not go into that with these swinging dicks picking at her brains. It was no s**t that she didn’t like a guy like Wallace running around out there, who didn’t follow the cops and robbers rules. But mostly she didn’t like the fear and insecurity that it had temporarily created in her.

This information concerned Morgan. It really didn’t add up. Cops, even bad cops, even really bad cops would have jumped all over a prize like Stella Grey. They would be famous forever.

…hmmm. Morgan thought.

…hmmm. Wallace thought. It would be fun to go knock on the door, just to see who would be capable of taking down Vincent. Maybe he would…later.

Not today though.

Anyone who would kill Papa Vincent wouldn’t hesitate for a second to kill him. But he was so damn curious.

He almost walked over to the building three or four times.  He felt that insistent pull of curiosity, trying to move his legs for him.

But he just couldn’t justify it. After about fifteen minutes of staring at the cement walls of the wide nondescript building, Wallace gave up and turned around.

A block later, with the building still just barely out of sight, he pulled out his cell phone and dialed a cab. He waited on a graffiti covered bus bench for the cab, and stared down the street in the direction of the building.

Oh well, he thought. F**k it. I found them but there isn’t a damn thing I can do about it. So just f**k it.

The cab pulled up and parked in front of Wallace some fifteen minutes later. The driver was extremely nervous at having to be anywhere near low town and the industrial park beyond. He’d heard ‘they’ like to bury people in the chemical laced soil out in the shipping yards. He had no idea who ‘they’ were, but in his old country, ‘they’ were usually very serious. He suspected that ‘they’ were very serious here too.

The intense looking man in the sport coat took his sweet time getting into the car. The driver wondered if this guy was a ’they’, and decided it would be very foolish of him to ask. The man kept looking down the road, his eyebrows knitted together. He was in deep thought, or very angry, or both.

“Where can I take you sir?” The cab driver was working very hard on his accent, but it was hard.

“Take me to the police station downtown.” He said, and flipped open his wallet showing his badge. A Detective’s badge.

There was no reason to have done that, but Wallace wanted to make sure that he got a free ride. Or at least a discounted one. Not that he thought this cabby could afford it, but honestly, Wallace couldn’t afford to get raped by the cab fare. That’s why he walked everywhere. Goddamn alimony anyway. Goddamn lawyers. He’d long ago decided never to remarry after his ex. Dumbest thing he’d ever done in his life was to marry an attorney. He was still paying for that mistake, and probably would for the rest of his life. But what did that have to do with the price of cab fare, hmm? The cabby looked nervous. Which was a good thing.

“Right away sir.” The cabbie said. He began to sweat and chant under his breath. An ancient prayer of hope and solace.

They drove off into the afternoon light, a burnt orange from the pollution.

Wallace had been gone for most of the day, though he hadn’t really been missed down at the precinct. The captain wanted to talk to him when he got in, and they sat down to a long discussion. The captain wanted to know what Wallace knew about Vincent, and he told him everything he knew in rapid fire. His boss really wasn’t listening. He was just going through the motions.

Someone had told him to play ball, and make sure that the investigation was stopped.

He conveyed this message to Wallace, who initially showed no sign of interest.

“Did you hear me Fish?” The Captain said.

Wallace rolled his eyes and leaned back in his chair. “Yeah I heard ya.” He said. “Now what the f**k am I supposed to do? The organized crime job sucked, but it was the only one I had.” He said.

“Well,” The captain said, “I’ve got a bunch of bodies that need to be cleaned up. I know you hate homicide, and believe me I’ve tried to keep you out of it. But I could really use your help here at the moment.” The Captain wore a half grimace of sympathy on his face as he delivered the assignment.

“Ah f**k.” Wallace said. “Just don’t put me with that dip s**t of a kid.”

The half grimace turned into a full one.

“Goddamn it. Do you have any good news?” Wallace leaned forward in his chair and buried his face in his hands.

“Well,” The Captain said. “Somebody killed Papa Vincent last night. That’s some good news isn’t it?”

Wallace just sat there. Shaking his head back and forth in his hands. He muffled something into his palms that the Captain didn’t hear.

“What was that Fish?”

Wallace leaned back and dropped his hands. “You owe me a steak and a beer, tonight...no... Right now. Period.”

“Cool. I know just the spot.”

“A*****e.”

“Damn straight.” The captain got out of his chair, and grabbed his jacket (a considerably newer looking one than Wallace’s) off the wall. “I’m driving, and your drinking.”

“It’s about time you did something useful. Since I‘ll be cleaning up bodies, why don‘t you float me a raise?” Wallace said, and walked out the door ahead of the Captain.

“I would but your ex would just take it.”

“I know. It was worth a shot though. Maybe I can set up a trust fund in someone else’s name.” Wallace said.

“Better not be my name,” The Captain said. “Or my ex will take it.”

“S**t. Damn lawyers.”

“Amen.” The captain agreed. The door closed behind them, blinds banging against glass.

High above the Short Timer’s control room, on the fifth floor of the facility, two slugs of flesh lay in the gloom. A steady thrum of monitoring machinery beeped and breathed, maintaining the physical systems of the bodies.

One stirred in upset dreams, occasionally having to be restrained for the fear of ripping away IV tubes. The other was placid. Almost smiling.

The calm one was a woman. Young, beautiful, and graceful even in the deep comatose sleep of the recovery. Her light colored hair hung down from her scalp around her oval face, and surrounded her head on the pillow. In the pinpoint medical light it glowed like a halo. Her face was composed of striking features that defied any racial lean. She could have been a priceless porcelain doll.

Her eyes twitched back and forth twice. Then opened wide. A monitor in another room gave two distinctive beeps, and then began recording the brain wave patterns. They weren’t strange by any means, other than perhaps a little more even than others who’d undergone the procedure.

After a few moments, her expression changed a little. The high brows knit together, and the full lips gained a downward pull. Her lips opened and she uttered one word.

“Ow.” The brainwaves changed. To the skilled reader they would show a mind in intense pain.

Minutes later an older man, looking kind and sympathetic with thinning grey hair and thin glasses came into the room. Thin lines traced his cheeks and eyes. A man who smiled, and a man who brooded. A man used to showing emotion. He spoke with calmness to the woman.

“You’re not quite done with your healing yet Michelle. I’m going to give you a sedative to ease the pain, ok?”

By then Michelle’s lips had turned white from being pressed together. Her eyes had sunk in and turned dark around the edges.

“My bones…” She said, barely a whisper. “On fire…Help…me… please.”

“Ok…Just a moment.” The kind looking man, with quick gestures injected something into her IV line.

“Wait…” She whispered. “Had a dream…something hidden…Legion…freaking out.” She was drifting. “Wait…what’s your name?” She asked.

“I’m Dr. Marcus.” He said. “Don’t worry about the dreams. Don’t worry about…Legion? Rest for now.” He didn’t know what she was talking about, but he doubted that even she did. She’d awoke a full two weeks before the nano’s had finished the bone work. The pain must be excruciating.

“No!” She said. Surprising him, she gripped his arm with a terrible claw like hand. “…Something hidden. In someone here….close to you…dragon, no…half-dragon…close…..careful.”  Her grip loosened and fell away from his arm.

No matter how many times he’d seen people go through this type of pain, it still bothered him. He hated the pain systems of the body, even knowing how necessary they were to the health of the individual.

He gently placed her hand over her midriff, and smoothed back her hair where a couple of golden locks had strayed over her eyes. His hands shook. His face gained the emotion that he’d carefully tried to hide from the stricken young woman.

Michelle was chosen and asked to join the group based on her skill as a medium. The other scientists in the group had picked her first from a short list of scientifically verified paranormal talents. She’d been involved in double blind studies through several universities, and proven to be between 80 and 90 percent accurate in her tests. She had unprecedented talent. The group wanted to see what affects the treatment would have on her abilities. Though, most didn’t hold a lot of hope that she would be able to maintain sanity. And honestly Marcus didn’t either. He cursed himself for his coldness daily for agreeing to subject her to the treatment. But when presented with the information and the risks, Michelle had almost instantly agreed to join, even with the knowledge of who’d she be working with, and the risks involved with the group. Marcus’s only hope was that Morgan would delay her military usage until it was absolutely necessary that she was needed for such things. But Marcus only had a limited say in that area, and in the spirit of honor, didn’t argue against Morgan’s wisdom when it came to his operatives.

The other unconscious individual had been chosen for his ability to hide, much like Stella Grey had been chosen. But where Stella had maintained only a few identities, keeping them  out of the limelight of the world very successfully for so long. This man had been able to maintain several distinct and complicated personalities right out in the open, a kind of natural chameleon. His entrance into the group was voluntary also, though it was based on his being caught, and his identities exposed to him. Along with a very specific threat; join the group and submit to the treatment, or run the risk of his lives exposed to people who would be interested. His reply to the threat had been interesting.

“Expose them. I don’t care. They mean nothing. Kill me. I don’t care. I mean nothing.”

Dr. Clay, Marcus’s colleague and unofficial leader of the other members of the science group had been a little confused by the response. But, reiterated unnecessarily the options.

The dark haired eccentric captive, looking bored, looking hard, stared condescendingly at Dr. Clay and nodded his head once.

Now he lay on the bed next to Michelle, strapped to the table and undergoing the same treatments as her. He slept fitfully, often times crying out, even in his chemically induced coma.

Dr. Marcus felt the strangeness bake off the man while he rested.

Why the need for so many different identities? Why?

Spies need them, but this man was not part of any governmental organization. Dr. Malcolm had checked his background(s) over and over again using the same system that Morgan used to check for people in the system. There was nothing to indicate that he was or had been any part of any governmental group. Marcus couldn’t help but feel a deep sense of unease. It would have been far more comfortable to understand the people within the group, particularly the potential monsters, before sharpening their teeth. But, in this case, he wasn’t as concerned.

The operation on the gentlemen had not gone as easily as the others. The bone grafts and reinforcement had gone well, the webbing was placed with all the precision that Marcus and the other physicians were so accustomed to giving. But when the Nano’s were placed, they seemed to be getting lost. They didn’t follow the webbing pathways designed for them, and they had to be reset occasionally. Marcus was certain that he would have to keep this man under heavy sedation for at least another month for the Nano’s to complete their task. But by now, he wasn’t certain at all if the man would live. Not only were the bone nano’s getting lost on the bone, they were straying off of the bone, creating tiny little bone strings out into the muscles that needed to be removed. It didn’t look good at all. Marcus and the other scientists on the project were lost as to what was going on.  

To look at the usual Short Timers bone scans, on x-ray, or MRI, an observer would see a tightly packed grid work of extra dense calcium deposits. The Nano’s were programmed to follow a precise web of material that would help them reconstruct the bone, and weld it with the existing bone. The result was like a titanium lacing to the bones, to help withstand the tremendous forces the altered muscles and tendons could exert on the bone nodules they attached to. In the early days of their research, Dr. Marcus and Dr. Clay had discovered that evolution only allowed a certain amount of pressure on the bone’s before they simply wore out and shattered under the strain of expanded strength.

The average Short Timer had roughly anywhere from 80 to 100 percent more strength than their original physical state, plus much more when the body was under the influence of adrenaline and the advanced amphetamines used in the serum. If the bone state’s remained the same as before the treatments, a Short Timer under stress could exert almost 500 times the normal force on the bones of the body. The result was highly stressed and fractured bone structure, that halved the effectiveness of the original procedure.

With the introduction of Nanotechnology reinforcement, the bone states could be optimized to that of the muscle strength of the individual. Moreover, the nano’s continued to work even after the operation, helping the body’s natural abilities to heal micro fractures. A boxer or a martial artist will spend years conditioning their bones to withstand the pressures of striking. Years of practice of hitting boards and walls, knuckle pushups in gravel, stomping on pavement over and over again, gives the fighter dense bones that can withstand massive amounts of pressure. With the nano technology the Short Timers had at their disposal, the same effect could be achieved within a fraction of the time. The only major drawback, and side effect, was a constant ache in the bones.

Dr. Marcus’s original plan for this idea was to put the nano’s in place within the medical community to heal the everyday fractures of the world populous. And potentially expand the industry into other organs, to give the healing body a massive and permanent boost. Like a cybernetic immune and healing system. How many diseases would be wiped out? How much pain could be avoided? How much useless hacking at the living body could be neutralized with one injection of particles with a programmed purpose; to fix whatever imbalanced feature of the body was failing?

But the science was too new for anyone…except the military.

And so became the Short Timer Program.

Dr. Marcus let out a deep sigh, and stared at the two figures covered in comfortable blankets in the dark room. Michelle’s face was relaxed and placid, glowing in sleep. The other’s face, Dr. Marcus didn’t know his name, was clenched in a half scowl. He wondered what the man saw, and wondered why it mattered. From Morgan’s description, he’d felt and saw nothing during the times he was under anesthesia. Likewise the other’s had seemed similarly calm. These two were the only ones who’d ever had any other reaction than calm passive sleep.

Dr. Marcus left the room, and hiked up to the roof of the Short Timers facility, to look out on the city and think. He would often come up to the roof, look out on the shimmering glow of the waterfront and the reaching towers. He’d drink wine from a small crystal, and wrestle with is conscience; With his responsibility, to his humanness, and his love for science. It was an ongoing struggle.

Where the f**k are we?

Silence from the jury. Multiple eyes stared across an open and hazy landscape of vapor and mist, struck through with vibrant colors from every spectrum.

What is the meaning of this place? Why are we here? Are we dead?

A sudden onslaught of questions from the voices within him/them. There was never really any rhyme or reason to the boiling persons within him, and now was no different. He felt for his body and felt nothing. Uh, Oh. He thought. What was there to give him identity? That was usually the last defense... to know his face and body was his.

Ooooh. Hissed a couple of the hungry voices. He’s right down here in the trenches now. I’ll bet we can have some fun with him now that he can’t run to the mirror no more.

Hey! You guys shut up and leave him alone!

Hey f**k you!

A suddenly snarling filled the glowing air. It was like a many headed dog fight, He could feel the teeth bared and ripping into flesh. His flesh that wasn’t his flesh.

He could feel himself being ripped. Like being underwater and drowning with the hands of rescuers and sea monsters grappling with his limbs in a desperate game of tug-o-war that would leave him drawn and quartered beneath the surface of the water. He knew there were dark things with him at all times, beckoning him, insulting and agitating him. Sometimes they came forward and drove him. They dragged at his dangling feet against the pull of his friends and protectors that yanked hard and upwards on his arms. He began to scream in the pearly foam of the strange floating world.

Johnny come out and plaaay! A sing-song voice repeated over and over again in between the snapping and guttural snarls of voices.

He felt like a piece of rib bone thrown into a pit filled with wild and starving dragons.

Leave him alone! He’s not a part of this!

Shut up you c**t! A high pitched wailing followed.

When he’d been a child he’d had moments like this. His usual defense had been to cut himself across the arms, focusing on the pain to bring him back to the real. Some of the voices liked that action, and they squirmed in ecstasy every time the blade or glass or nail pierced the skin. He could feel them in his mind, panting in orgasm. He wished he could do that now, but he didn’t have a body here, and his conscience was a floating fragile bubble moving upward through pine needles.

He wanted to repeat his name to himself over and over….He tried to…But he stopped when he couldn’t remember his name. The Jury was gone, they had long joined the dog fight in his mind. He heard screaming and laughing and yelling. He heard bones breaking and skin tearing.

He thought that maybe he could back off the sound of voices, if he could just focus on something else. Some other sound. ‘

But it was quiet here. The voices were the only things that made any noise.

He closed his eyes, or blacked out his vision... whatever it was. He could only see blackness.

He tried to concentrate on nothing. Concentrating as hard as he could. He had nothing to defend himself against the boiling anger in the voices.

But they seemed to be quieting…getting farther away. He poured all of his strength into widening that auditory gap.

He imagined he could see the ball of fury getting further away. He separated himself, concentrating on the feeling of being alone. Handling the distance as though it were an unruly neighbor. He still heard clacking teeth and swearing and smacking and dragging…but it was receding. Away. Away. Away.

If he were in his body, his eyes would be bloodshot. He’d be covered in sweat and blood. His heart would be hammering in his chest like the war drums of some forgotten culture beating time to it’s dawning death. His lips would be rimmed with the blood of some unsuspecting victim. Someone that he’d bitten to death. His tongue would be caked with saliva and blood and hair picked up from the body of his victim and their clothing. His fingernails would be sore from the ripping of flesh.

The ball of angry voices, hating biting and clawing at each other were far off now. Like a nightmare barely awoken from. Like a dream of falling, and waking just before landing, the boiling feeling of sickness still in the stomach from the unnatural free fall.

But something wasn’t right. He opened his eyes to the bright amebic world and looked around at the vacuous space. It was still there, glowing and beautiful. But something was wrong.

He felt his mind traced back, to a memory of something he did very recently. The little tickle of memory like that itch in the back of the throat. The word you can never remember. The last few digits of a phone number.

He could just start to feel his body. In pain, and tied down. Like looking down and being able to see through himself. As if he were a ghost.

One of the Jury was still with him. It was the Mean One. The one that spoke the most often, and occasionally helped him.

‘Having fun johnny?’

SSSHHHH! He said, you’ll bring them back. I can’t stand it when they start fighting.

Oh, I know. The Mean One said. I’ll make them go all the way away if you want.

Johnny thought. He remembered who he was now finally, and remembered the Mean One was the trickster.

No. Johnny said. I can’t…My mom’s in there.

The other voice was silent for a moment.

You killed your mother. It said at last.

Oh God…No I didn’t…I swear I didn’t.

Are you sure? The voice asked.

Yes I’m sure. I know I didn’t kill my mother.

Ok. The Mean One made the threat very clever in his voice. I guess we’ll have to ask her if that’s true.

NO! Johnny said. He saw in his mind the ball of angry voices coming at him from someplace before him. It looked like a ball of rippling smoke and water, composed of frightened, angry, and mad faces. It screamed towards him like a bullet, with one large face in it’s center. It’s mouth was open and full of sharp teeth. Just before it got to him, the face changed to that of his long dead mother.

She was screaming at him, to stop, and to die, and to clean up his room, and vacuum. And to pull down his trousers, and drop his underwear.

He started to scream again. She opened her steaming and mad mouth and slammed the teeth onto him.

He saw darkness and blood and his mother’s body washed in redness glowing in a single lamp light. He screamed over and over again.

Help me! He screamed to the Mean One. Help me she’s got me.

He saw his mother’s ruined body…broken out teeth smiling at him from the middle of the bucket in the floor. She started to laugh, and put her body parts back together again. She came after him.

He had a body again, but it was the body of a young boy. Maybe ten or twelve. He was naked and covered with blood.

Noooo! He screamed and ran towards the closet of his old room. He quickly slammed the door behind him and crouched in a fetal position in the darkness of the closet. He heard the wet sound of her walking through the room. He heard the thump of something soft on the outside, hard on the inside, slap against the hardwood floor of his room.

He heard something scratch down the door.

It opened up, and he screamed at the crooked jawed sight of his gore covered mother. Her tongue lay on her cheek.

He screamed and she reached down and grabbed his little boy tongue, and ripped it from his mouth. Then she swallowed it as he gurgled on the blood.

The Mean One started to laugh. And the rest of the fighting voices barreled into the bedroom where he hid, and proceeded to rip him to shreds in the closet that had been his only sanctuary for so long in his childhood. Not anymore. His demons had found him. The jury had found him. And they passed their judgment on him, and were exacting the sentence.

Is he gone?

He is gone.

Ok. So where are we?

Give me a minute and I’ll tell you.

Dr. Marcus entered the room again later. His trip to the roof as unsatisfying as ever. He looked over the comatose bodies, looking for signs of life. The girls wakefulness from earlier tugged on his mind like the right and wrong of his position. She seemed so sweet, and kind. How could he conscionably turn her into a murderer? Even though her choice was to be so.

He looked over the dark haired man, strapped to the other table. He sensed a lack of tension that had always been there before. The somehow noble brows that had always been creased before were now eased apart and resting. The clenched jaw, that used to defy even the strongest of their drugs had relaxed into the slackness of the paralyzed.

He didn’t like sudden changes in behavior like that without explanation. The doctor checked the medical equipment, and the nano monitors.

Hmm. The nano’s had found their track and were building up the bones in the usual way, not the chaotic way they had before with this patient.

“Dr. Marcus.” An electronic voice from the computer console said. It was Morgan, paging him from his control room.

“Yes.”

“I need to speak with you, if I may.”

“I’m not certain if this is a good time Morgan.” Dr. Marcus said, looking over a paper readout that showed the brainwave patterns of his subjects. The girls was normal and even. Heavy Delta and Theta waves. Nothing of the others. She was deep in sleep. But the others wave patterns were all over the place. And there was an intense spike of activity a few moments after he’d gone up to the roof. Now everything was calm and seemed closer to normal than any other time he’d checked the printouts.

“I appreciate that sir,” Morgan said, always being polite. “But I’m afraid this can’t wait. There’s a gentlemen here who knows of you now, and has asked for a meeting.”

“Ah, Morgan.” Dr. Marcus let the annoyance convey through his voice. “We discussed that, I’d hoped you would understand.”

“I do understand, however, this gentlemen possess a very strong talent in the Field. He knows about the fifth floor, and you. He’s requested a meeting, and with all due respect to your anonymity sir, I would appreciate it if you would hear what he has to say.” Marcus sensed something behind the politeness that seemed tense. Morgan seemed a little more distant than usual, or more intense than usual. He couldn’t place the feeling, but either way in a very primal part of his brain, Marcus sensed a threat.

“Who is this gentlemen?” Marcus asked.

“Tsang.”

Marcus’s interest spiked. He hadn’t expected it to be Tsang. “The Yakuza?”

“Yes.” Morgan said, his tone flat and expressionless. “And he is very insistent sir. I would ask as a personal favor to me to meet with him and answer his questions.”

“Sounds like you made a deal with him, yeah?”

Morgan was quiet for a moment. “Something like that sir. However I believe he can be trusted with your secrecy.”

Dr. Marcus sighed. Weighing his options and seeing that he had none. The simple truth of his unease with the Short Timers was that he didn’t want to know the killers that he’d made possible. He wanted to keep them distant and gray in his mind. Like subjects to be studied in a lab, not real people. He’d come to know Morgan, and could most of the time consider him a colleague and friend. However, to look at the man was a striking testament to the strangeness of the process he’d volunteered for. Morgan could look intense even when he was happy. But when he was even remotely upset, the look that cast over his features could be unnerving and truly frightening. Moreover, Dr. Marcus believed that Morgan knew this, and intentionally intimidated him in order to maintain his dominance over him. It was hard for him to trust the creatures he created. Despite his respect for them, he knew how strong and mean they were. It was a world that he didn’t understand but had somehow been placed in the forefront of their manipulation. He wished he had Dr. Clays arrogance, it would make at least a slightly better defense than his own honesty and quietness.

“Very well, meet me in my office.” He said. “Give me about twenty minutes. I’ve got something to finish up here.”

“Sure thing, doc.” Morgan said, and severed the connection.

Dr. Marcus, scanned through the readouts quickly. He’d seen this wildness before in this subject, but never the calmness following the spikes of activity. This disturbed him, but only because he didn’t have an answer for it’s existence.

He looked over the calm face. Despite his curiosity, he didn’t dare speculate. Too many years of being a scientist in the bleeding edge fields had taught him not to get too hypnotized looking into the crystal ball of guessing the future. It was often wrong.

He left the room, dimming the lights on the two sleeping people on the way out. The young woman still glowed in the light, as if some strange inner light source graced her skin.

What a lovely young woman. Such a shame.

The door closed behind him with a tiny click, and he walked through the bland halls of the upper floor towards his office.

Ok Tsang. Morgan said, not knowing where the man was in the complex, but believing he was waiting for news of their impending meeting. I’ve set up our meeting with Dr. Marcus.

I’ll be there. Tsang replied.

Morgan sat back in his chair and waited for the minutes to tick by. He was agitated with the doctor for his need for secrecy. It spoke of a weakness in the old man that Morgan couldn’t help but look down on. He wondered if there was a way that he could break the wall of the man’s unease so they could have better communication between the Short Timers and the science group. Morgan knew that in order for any system to work well, it needed to be operating in concert with itself. The weakness in the chain was the Field, and the Short Timers ability to use it, and the inability of the science group to understand it. Without doubt his people needed the scientists for their infusions and survival, and he wanted a specific amount of control over that variable.

The door to his control room opened and Tsang walked in silently. What are we waiting for? He asked as he sat down in a comfortable chair near Morgan.

The doc has to finish up something on the fifth floor. Morgan replied.

“We need to get used to speaking with our voices more.” Morgan said. “The scientists don’t understand the telepathy at best, because they can’t use it. But something like the Field is  completely alien to them. They can’t wrap their big brains around something that they can’t measure with their instruments.”

Tsang nodded and leaned back. “An understandable problem. I’d give you some sagely Chinese proverb, but somehow I believe it would fall short of the mark in this case. However, I think we‘re missing some vital point here: The science group is far smarter than we‘ve given them credit for. Just look down at yourself and take stock of all the different alterations. These men can think far further out of the box than you might believe Morgan, and we would be wise to consider their abilities throughout our journey. Who‘s frustration caused the communication break down in the first place? Was it theirs or ours?”

Morgan thought for a moment, appreciating the criticism and contrasting point of view.

Morgan liked Tsang more and more each time they spoke. He nodded to Tsang, but didn’t feel the need to verbalize the point.

“So tell me Morgan. What did you do with Vincent?” He asked, breaking the stride of the conversation with a hammer blow of surprise.

“Well.” Morgan said, not certain exactly what Tsang knew about what had gone on. “I killed him.”

Tsang snorted. “Yes. That much I witnessed for myself. What I meant was after you killed him. I heard him screaming long after he’d lost the ability to do so.”

Morgan was quiet for a long moment, composing his thoughts carefully. Not trying to hide from his new friend, but at least trying to understand well enough what he’d done earlier in the evening to explain it clearly. Or somehow not try to sound like a madman and an idiot.

“I don’t know for sure.” Morgan said. “Thinking of it now, I didn’t want him to die that quickly. I wanted information but I wanted more time to… play with him. I think I ‘grabbed’ a part of his life force and just held onto it. I stashed it away in a vault somewhere within me… within my Field. It feld very strange, but satisfying.”

“I’ll bet.” Tsang said, grabbing another very western term. “I felt it in you, and I also felt madness there.” Tsang looked at Morgan with a deep seriousness in his eyes. Morgan’s console lit the small mans scarred face and reflective eyes.

“Morgan, I’ve already expressed that I’m not superstitious, but I believe there is real danger in what you did out there.” He kept his gaze steady on Morgan’s face. “You should be cautious with your skill.”

“I agree with you Tsang. I won’t be using it again if I have another choice.” Secretly though, he thought of the feeling of torturing a man already dead, and the vengeful part within him grinned the sickening smile of the damned. “But much of the information I pulled from him will be very useful when it comes to handling not only the rest of the Cosa Nostra, but also your former brother and his affiliates.” Morgan let the statement hang in the air, while he fixed Tsang with a hard and serious stare.

“I believe you, but this is what I also believe. Some people are better at being dead than they are alive. And when they give up their bodies, their strength is far superior to what we have when we’ve got a foot in each world.”

“You think we’re hanging out with the dead when we’re in the Field?” Morgan asked, his curiosity peaked at the statement.

“Perhaps. Considering what I witnessed with your entrapment of Vincent, it looks to me as though the shoe fits.”

“So where do you think the danger lies?”

Tsang was quiet for a moment before he answered.

“Could be a variety of places, but think first of the possibilities. What if an individual succumbs to rage when they die? And what if they have a natural ability within the Field once they leave the body? Can you be certain that the strengths we possess here are carried over into the Field? There are many questions, but right now we have no answers other than we know that the Field exists, and we can detect and use it. But are our earth bound rule systems even close to what is required to understand the full scope of the Field? Now I am going to hit you with an old piece of wisdom: What can a snake really know about flying?”

“Your point is clear, and I will exercise more caution in the future. However, I believe you were the one who was preaching earlier about the amount of time we have to work with.”

Tsang grinned, a strange half painful looking thing, and lightly bowed his head towards Morgan, conceding the point. “That is very true.” He said. “All I am suggesting is that we learn how to crawl before we fly.”

“Fair enough.” Morgan said. Then he was quiet for a moment.

Now that I am a little more confident in my abilities, would you mind showing me the hidden spot that you discovered? Morgan asked telepathically.

Tsang nodded, and they both entered the Field.