Chapter Seven
Honor Defended
I stepped into the apartment fully expecting to find Jane gone and it was somewhat of a surprise to see her rise up out of a chair at my entrance. “I got it, actually I got two. One is for a backup in case we need it.”
“Excellent! Good thinking on your part.” Jane responded.
I gave her an odd look, as she seemed rather bubbly. I passed over the two nondescript items that I’d almost gotten poisoned to death over in several different fashions.
I couldn’t but help ask, “Why are you so upbeat?”
She glanced up from the items in her hands, “To tell you the truth I didn’t really think you could succeed, but now that you have I see hope in this mission. It will be a good thing to see my research actually do some good.”
I nodded and thought ‘and get paid for it’, but I kept that thought to myself. Her reasons for being bubbly seemed plausible enough, but there was just something about her that still didn’t add up with me.
“Well you knock yourself out with playing with those. I’m getting something to eat and some sleep before round two of this scavenger hunt starts.”
I headed back out to the town mindful to be cautious about being seen as I left the apartment. I thought about where to eat. Truthfully there weren’t many places yet available in terms of providing a real selection.
The economy in the nation had really pulled together as a whole in America after the Code had come down. Nations around the world, not so adversely affected by the Code, had given generously and America was well on the way to getting back up on its feet, but the recovery was still tough going in places.
An old fast food restaurant had just reopened. I didn’t really care for the food they offered, but perhaps because of the nostalgia of younger days I chose to eat at it. It seemed that everyone else had the same idea and there was quite a line, but it was moving along quickly so I stayed.
When I got to my turn at the register I ordered and paid and then went to stand off to the side with the other people who were waiting for their orders. Everyone behind the counter was busy, and they were doing their best to be organized against the rush. As each person stepped forward to grab their bag the manager himself would assist them.
His words became a constant repeating litany, “Do you need any sauces?” To which he fulfilled whatever their requests may be from bins on the other side of the counter generously. I stepped up to the counter to claim my bag and thinking to beat him to the punch I asked for honey mustard sauce.
The manager glanced up my tall frame and his whole disposition changed in the familiar hang-up that I was used to, but nonetheless angered by. With a curt jerk of a finger he gestured to an outward amenity station, “You can get your sauce over there!”
I was tired and hungry and right now the thought of pulling the pompous white hided racist across the counter and pummeling him half to death sounded like a good idea. Before I could act out on that ill advised fantasy though the sudden quiet of the place was punctuated by sudden, “Hey!”
All eyes of the people caught up in the sanctimonious taboo swiveled to a man standing in line waiting for his food a couple of feet away from me. He was an aging portly built man complete with beard and tattoos. He had truck driver and biker written all over him and he was white.
He had a no-nonsense attitude about him that might find some root in the faded Semper Fi tattoo bedecking one arm. Despite the man’s worn down and bedraggled appearance there was still something about him that demanded respect.
“I didn’t fight and bleed alongside people of his color in the fight for freedom so lily livered panty waisted idiots like you could stand so high and mighty behind a counter and dictate to someone as if they were beneath you, when you don’t even have a drop of spilled blood within you for a noble ideal and that’s if you ever had the gumption to even try! Now you reach your hand into that box and pull out them sauces like the man asked for or so help me I’ll come back there and lay you out!”
The apoplectic red-faced manager quickly did as ordered and then disappeared into the recesses of the kitchens, as the normal flow of the restaurant gradually restored itself in the absence of the manager. Something else was somewhat restored, my faith in my fellow man. I inclined my head toward the unlikely defender of equality and received one in return.
I had been going to just leave the restaurant with my food, but I decided to stay and claim a spot so to speak.
Jane was hard at work the next morning when I stepped within the apartment. From the amount of active computer monitors and strands of wires radiating out from the devices I had brought back I surmised that she had been at it all night. She truly did seem to be serious about helping.
I glanced at the monitors and what I saw was beyond my comprehension skills. It was apparent that she knew what she was doing at least.
Jane glanced up somehow still looking fresh after a night of staring into computer monitor and asked, “Ready for your next near-death experience?”
I couldn’t help but chuckle at the use of the old movie line from the A-Team.
“I’m afraid!” I quipped back at her.
I wasn’t really afraid, but well maybe I was.
Seriousness took over and I asked what I had been dreading to know the answer to, “So where to next?”
She seemed to pause before answering, “Wrangel Island.”
I’d heard the name before somewhere in something I’d read one time. I searched for it in earnest and like a faithful dog my brain responded for me, “Isn’t that where they think the last mammoths to be alive were?”
“Yes it is they were pygmy mammoths. The Soviets built a research facility on the island to study the biology of the place. It was abandoned and the Code took it over and expanded it underground more. It was where they did most of their testing on the humans that they turned into hybrid robots.”
“So you know about them?” I asked in an effort to dig up information.
Jane’s eyes flickered downward as she responded, “Yes I know about them and I think it was awful what they did to those poor people.”
“Was that all they did there?”
“No, they had other experiments.”
“Like what?” I asked not really wanting to know, but needing to know.
“I’m not sure. I was never there, but I heard vague rumors that it wasn’t good.”
She was lying to me again. I felt sure of it, but I didn’t press it.
She spoke again, “One other thing you should know about the place. There was some sort of an incident that took place there shortly after the Code fell and before my facility was closed down. I doubt whether you’ll meet with any resistance, but the facility due to its sensitive testing material was rigged to blow in the event of a security breach. Be careful not to activate any countdown procedures, as the whole facility will likely lockdown before it blows up.”
I nodded my head, “A real walk in the park this time.” I said sarcastically.
She countered with, “At least there shouldn’t be any snakes this time.”
No probably there wouldn’t be, but what else would I find in a facility that had experimented on turning humans into hybrid robotic forms?
This trip would be somewhat colder so I outfitted myself accordingly and this time I made sure to pack more armament, but how I was going to get to the remote Russian held island without raising suspicion was a real problem. Planes were worth their weight in gold right now and while I had the funds to get one if I needed to I hated to waste so much money on something that would likely only have a one time use. I didn’t like flying planes anyway.
I could fly a plane if I needed to, but I didn’t care for it. They should have picked Flint for this mission. He was far more well-rounded and experienced with these sort of missions.
Well they hadn’t picked him; they’d picked me instead, a relative newcomer to the Agency. I would do my best, but in terms of managing the mission I felt like I was winging it by the seat of my pants.
My thoughts turned to Flicker and almost immediately I felt her thoughts come to me, “Need a lift?”
I stopped dead on the street and quickly thought responded, “Yeah that would be great!”
“Get a car and drive south out of town.” Came the response.
I got a car and five minutes later I was outside of town headed south.
“Take a right and then a left.”
I followed the instructions.
“Park the car.”
I did and got out pulling my duffel bag along with me. I felt the brush of air on me, even though there was no breeze. Like a phantom out of some kind of sci-fi show the form of an entirely alien looking aircraft materialized out of nowhere to hover overtop the dirt road ahead of me.
It wasn’t a plane so much as it was an air mobile of sorts. Kind of a mixture between a jet ski, with an F-14 front and two small projecting side wings reminiscent of a World War II fighter plane. It looked as lethal and sleek as its rider, who turned the craft to the side and dipped the one wing down until it almost touched the gravel of the road.
Flicker turned her blonde head to me and flashed her white teeth, “Ready for your next near-death experience?”
It was the second time that old movie line had been said today, but this time I had to admit I was scared. I could feel Flicker laughing at me in my mind, even as she only continued to stare at me in the physical with a smile.
I walked up the lowered wing gingerly, only to see that there wasn’t much room left on the seat that Flicker straddled. This was going to be uncomfortable.
The idea of crossing an ocean and invading another country’s sovereign airspace with a vessel out of a sci-fi drama was daunting to say the least.
I swung my duffel bag behind my shoulder, as I swung my leg over and sat down in full contact with Flicker on the seat that she straddled. I don’t think these things were made to seat two. What was perhaps worst of all was that she was fully aware of everything I was going through in this moment.
“I want these stupid discs off my head now!” I said in an angry tone.
She peered over her shoulder at me and there was nothing shy about the look she gave me, “No, I think we’ll leave them on for now. After all I am learning so much about you through them!”
Before I could hotly respond to her insistence for continued torture she distracted me by handing something to me. It was a small rope.
“Would you mind tying my hair up for me please?” She asked sweetly.
I swallowed down my angry words and focused on doing just that. I loved her hair, but I didn’t want it smacking me in the face for the next several hours. Her thoughtfulness helped take away some of the anger I was feeling at her continued invasion of my thoughts. I tucked her now bound hair down between us.
“Hold on Utah.” She said husky voiced.
I let my hands settle loosely on her waist.
“You’ll need to hold on tighter than that Utah.”
I gritted my teeth and let my hands slide all the way around her and clasp together.
“How about this?” I said now being fully connected with her, even as I tried to keep my brain a neutral plain that she couldn’t read.
“That feels about right partner.” She said softly.
One moment we’d been hovering still and in the next we were screaming across the sky at a velocity that I wouldn’t have believed possible for such an open aired vessel. We were well shielded from the wind, but it was loud.
We seemed to come onto course and I focused on relaxing my death grip on Flicker and I felt her breathe easier as a direct result of my loss of tension about her. She looked back at me smiling. It was a beautiful smile and before I knew it she gave me a quick kiss on the lips.
I blinked in surprise at the back of her head as the wind whipped by overtop of us.
It was too loud to talk so I thought projected into her mind, “Enjoying yourself Flicker?”
“Yes, very much so!”
“What is it that you enjoy most? Tormenting me, flying this craft or something else?”
She laughed and responded with, “Something else.”
That aroused my curiosity so I pressed for what that something might be.
“I’m enjoying the feeling of being human and not just a machine-like freak. I’m enjoying the fact that I’m desired, even appreciated for who and what I still am. It’s more than I ever thought I would experience with someone in life.”
Her thoughts filled me and I couldn’t deny the truth of anything that I felt for her and much more. Her head came back and her blue eyes were sparkling, which I realized was likely because she saw all the truths of her own thoughts mirrored by my own. Talk about a truth serum. These discs had to come off!
Her eyes sparkled at me, “Why?”
I gave her a look that said what I was thinking and she giggled. She was quite overwhelming and I found myself asking, “Does this thing have autopilot?”
“Yes it’s already on it.” She said curiosity alive in her eyes as to what I was up to.
My hand left her waist to reach over her shoulder to secure the front of her jaw to receive my kiss, which she responded to eagerly, but she soon grew restless with the difficulty of the angle of the kiss. I was about to force myself to stop because I feared that I was hurting her neck, when she abruptly broke contact and lifted up off the seat. What was she doing?
Her body twisted then and before I knew it she was facing me with her thighs to either side of me. My head was the one seized this time in a metallic grasp that was firm without being painful, as flicker poured out all the depths of her yearning and desire in an open mouthed kiss that was beyond uninhibited. The kiss was great, but something occurred to me. God had said for me to be kind to her, but what about me? I felt completely powerless against her.
She was suddenly laughing into my mouth, “Hmm what’s this? Afraid that I’ll take advantage of you?”
“You spend more time in my head than you do in your own!” I groused out in response.
Oh drat it! If she’d read that than she knew about what I’d asked God about her! I peeked an eye open to see hers open and she winked at me in full acknowledgment that she knew all. Couldn’t a guy have any secrets?
She laughed again into my mouth. That really was a curious sensation, one that I rather liked.
Her grasp of my head left and I opened my eyes to see her arms folded behind her back. Her eyes met mine and our lips were still sealed together as her thoughts invaded my mind, “It is not within me to ever hurt the man I love.”
Her blue eyes reflected the truth of her words and I felt a surge of triumph course through me at her declaration. My hands found hers and my fingers intertwined with her metallic ones trustingly, as I experienced the most engrossing and highly pleasurable experience I had ever had while flying.