“If you give the people something to fear,
they will fear it.
If there is nothing to fear,
they will find something.”
- Director Sonn Tran
Commander Ali-Baba stood silently, waiting for the crew to come in. They were tired but attentive. He began the debriefing, reiterating the mission objectives and confirming with Simon the outcome.
“The data uploaded by Agent Norbert is being analyzed as we speak. From initial results, it seems the lab was a work in progress, being set up by the local drug manufacturers,” he said, unsmiling, “The facility will now be commandeered by Houston and brought under control, for the greater good of the population of Illinois. No point letting good equipment go to waste. It has been ear marked for our own biological division, so you can sleep knowing you've not only taken a ton of Whiz off the street, you've also paved the way for further research. Nice work the lot of you.”
He turned to Simon, “Any issues?”
Simon scratched the back of his head, “No sir, nothing to report. No hostiles were encountered. Unfortunately.”
“Did you make contact with any of the locals?”
“No sir, unless you count a handful of crabmen and a mangy muttrat 'locals'.”
“Crabmen. Fine. Was there no-one else about?”
“Ah, there were a couple of blokes in a house that we passed by, sir, but we weren't detected and they weren't looking. Also Lucas reported heat signatures out of some of the other houses further away, so the place still has people about.”
“And you are sure you were not seen?” asked Ali-Baba, looking carefully at Simon. Simon swallowed instinctively.
“Like I said, sir, we passed them by unseen. Otto was underneath their window the whole time, eh. They didn't say boo.”
“In your opinion, is the zone ready for a return mission?”
Simon nodded lightly.
“Sure. We got in and out without setting off anything. Only thing anyone snooping around might find would be a pile of rotting crabmen at site A, sir,” he said, “That's if the muttrats leave anything behind.”
Ali-Baba made notes on his touchpad.
“What about the security? What were the defenses like, Agent Emily?”
After the details of the mission were passed onto Ali-Baba, and all his questions were answered satisfactorily, the troops filed out.
Ottavio showered before returning to his room. Even though the mission had not been very taxing, he felt tired. He kicked back on his bed and flipped on his television. After cycling through a few channels, he switched to the news stream:
“... of Internal Security strongly suspects that the disaster in Rhode Island is the work of a terrorist organization, but as yet none have laid claim to the incident that took the lives of hundreds of innocent civilians. Until further information arises, however, he strongly urges the public to remain calm, citing the long standing safety record of the maglev railway and increased security measures put in place.”
“In further news, more pictures have arrived of sightings of what people have dubbed the Hellbeast. The low resolution pictures show the silhouette of a large body, long horns, and a mouth filled with teeth. Experts are divided as to whether the new set of pictures are a hoax or genuine.
Critics have pointed out that the pictures have always been taken at night, that the form is too well in the frame for a rushed shot, and that such a beast would be sure to leave a large trail.
Expecting yet another sample of megafauna, so called Freak-Hunters from around the Illinois region have flocked to the last known sighting, hoping to add another trophy to their walls...”
The events of the night ran through his mind. Something felt strange. He turned the television off and pushed his eyes into his sockets.
He examined the mission in its pieces. The crabmen being slaughtered by Simon. Lucas perched up in the station's tower. The two men chatting in the house. The keypad, the traps and bots. The fusion reactor and equipment. Something just did not add up.
It was the mission, the mission as a whole was strange. It was plausible enough, a drug manufacturing laboratory hidden on the edge of the wastes, and it was only natural that Houston Corps would be interested, for humanitarian purposes of course.
It just seemed too perfect, too easy. Everything went off without a hitch. Simon insisted on performing a solid sweep, even though it was more than obvious where the location of the laboratory and cache lay. Ali seemed very interested on determining whether the crew had been detected.
Ottavio lay down on his bed and sighed. A knock sounded at his door, so he got up and opened it. It was Lucas, looking as tired as Ottavio.
“Hey, what's up?” said Ottavio.
Lucas looked somber, but that was nothing out of the ordinary.
“Not a lot,” he said, shrugging. He stood, waiting in the doorway.
Ottavio furrowed his eyebrows, “Hey, you knocked on my door, remember?”
“So let me in, then.”
Lucas was awkward. Ever since Ottavio had known him, he could never quite pick what was going on inside his brain.
One minute he could be almost sociable, but then he would quickly fall back into his quiet, stoic self. Ottavio ushered him in and closed the door.
“Seriously,” he said, trying to think of a time when Lucas was not, “What's going on?”
“I've been thinking,” Lucas finally said, picking his words carefully, “That the mission was weird.”
“You think?” said Ottavio, interested to hear what Lucas had to say.
“Yeah, I do.”
Ottavio scratched his chin.
“I've been thinking the same thing. Weird sums it up, I guess. I mean, we hit it hard, it went off well. It did seem almost text book. Scripted even. Like, everything was supposed to go off as it did. We're a new team, Lucas. There are supposed to be wrinkles to iron out. I don't care how long we train together for, there's the simulators, and then there's the real thing. Perhaps the big wigs set up a lolly to see how we performed. ”
“It would be a pretty elaborate setup just as a training mission,” said Lucas.
Ottavio rubbed his eyes. Something else was bothering him.
“But that's not all,” he said, “I mean, if it was a drug lab, why advertise? Why bring in that sort of equipment. You didn't see it, but there was this huge fusion reactor, full on large scale stuff.”
“The place needs power.”
“Yeah, but not that much. If that thing was running at full power, Wheaton would practically glow. And how about this,” he said, getting his head around things, “What drug factory is ever without its share of goons loitering around? Come on, we've busted a couple of drug labs, you and I, and I don't think I've ever seen one so, I don't know, professional. And the stuff inside, it was all new, like the stuff you see in the labs.”
Lucas' eyes narrowed, “Do you think that Houston had already started moving their stuff in?”
“I didn't, but I'm starting to think it now. There were no drugs. There were no rags, no goons, no guards. For the cost of the equipment that was inside, they ran loose security,” said Ottavio, leaning back and looking at the ceiling, “Shit. Was that all some sort of ruse? Or is it that they don't trust us to work together yet?”
“You're right. Well, I think you're almost right. One can expect they would not wish to risk us on anything more than reconnaissance. In fact, I'd be surprised if they let us near anything that would require live ammunition for a few months,” said Lucas, “It's the other way around. I think it's not the Board that set it up, but Ali. I think he needs to show the Board some bang for their buck.”
He walked over to Ottavio's stereo radio and turned it on. Deep bass tunes blared in the room. Ottavio looked at him strangely. Lucas pointed to the ceiling knowingly.
“The thing is, I saw something,” he whispered, sitting back down.
“Like what?” said Ottavio, looking from the stereo and back to Lucas. He studied his face.
“When I was up in the tower, as you were approaching the objective zone, I was doing sweeps of the surrounds. As a precaution, I did a thermal one as well. To the east, about eight hundred meters away, were two people wandering through the ruins. I watched them pick their way over rubble toward the site.”
Ottavio frowned. “OK, I'm not picking up the strange vibe. Just a couple of scavengers. It's not like the place was uninhabited. What's the big deal?” he asked.
“I had them square in my sights, they left heat signatures on the ground as they walked. They were there. You know?”
Lucas stopped and looked at Ottavio.
“They were there,” Ottavio confirmed, “I'm down with that.”
“They were just there. You know, I saw them. No mistake. And then they both stopped short of the supermarket, turned and, I'm certain of it, they looked directly toward me.”
“Right... so you were made?” said Ottavio, “Why didn't you call it in.”
“Are you going to let me finish? I was going to call it in. Seriously, I was just about to tap the comms when, ah, but they, um, they just vanished,” hushed Lucas.
“They saw you seeing them, so they ran? Hid? Ducked down behind...”
“No, Ottavio, they vanished. As if they had never happened, just not... there anymore!”
Ottavio shook his head. “Nope,” he said, “No, you've lost me again.”
“Damn it! Aren't you listening? They... they were gone! Just gone! No movement, no ducking down, no nothing. Imagine seeing me, and then I'm gone. Just like that.”
“Shit.”
“So I then tried to get a visual on them but they weren't there. They just weren't there! It's not like the area wasn't illuminated enough. I could see everything. Everything! Just not them. So I switched to thermal again, but they were gone.”
Ottavio looked at him squarely. He was not playing games. If anything, he looked scared.
“Gone?”
“They were there, then they weren't there!”
Ottavio's eyebrows popped up, “You didn't think to report that in then?”
“Report what? There was nothing there! Hey Simon, beg to report that I can't see two guys who I've been tracking for the past minute. How is that going to go down? Huh?” said Lucas, grabbing his head with his eyes wide, “And I've just got implants that directly affect my vision and perception. Top of the line, top dollar stuff. They're watching me, they're watching us! Penelope has been banging on about it enough. If I start saying that I'm seeing things that aren't there, they'll start fiddling away, or scrub my memory and post me in Facilities. Hell, I've heard stories about what happens to special ops agents gone faulty, and I don't want to give them an excuse.”
“OK, slow down. Let's be rational, alright? If there was someone there...”
“Shit, Ottavio, there was!”
“Alright, I'm just saying that if there was, then they will have a reason for being there. Could you make out any faces, uniforms or whatever?”
“That's just it. Thermal's always fuzzy and they were a bit away, but they were masked. The bodies lacked any definition, no pants or shirts or anything. And no faces. Like I was looking at a damn space suit. They were talking to each other, that's the way it seemed anyway. They were blobs of heat, no real definition, nothing really distinct,” he said.
Lucas rubbed his face while Ottavio made him a coffee. The room's facilities were modest, but at least the coffee machine was decent.
“Like you said, thermal is fuzzy. Maybe you were looking at something else. You know, thermal works a little different to light. You can get reflections off shiny surfaces, you can get spots of...,” tried Ottavio, but he gave up, “Yeah, that's lame, I know. You've worked with it more than I have. If anyone is going to make a positive with special optics, it's you.”
Lucas took the cup of espresso and drained it.
“I kept checking about after that, but they never returned. Not a trace. Not on visual, not on thermal, not on UV, not on Broad Spectrum.”
“Do you think they saw you?”
Lucas popped his head up, “Hmm?”
“You said they turned and looked your way. Did they actually see you? Were you made?” Ottavio persisted.
Lucas rubbed his ear lobe gently, his mind's eye wandering back to the event.
“You know,” he said, “It did seem like one of them turned to my direction, just before... just before they went. It was like they were discussing something about me. But I don't know how they could have spotted me, not that quickly, or from that distance, not in the dark like that. And then to just vanish...”
“There's an explanation for everything.”
“I'm not going crazy.”
“I never said...”
“I'm not crazy. I know what you're thinking, but it's not true. I'd know. I'd know if I was cracking up!”
Ottavio and Lucas sat quietly for a while, Lucas nurturing a second cup, Ottavio rubbing his eyes.
This was certainly baffling. Implants or no, Lucas had the eyes of an eagle and a mind that could not be fazed easily. He never joked around or made things up for attention. So Lucas was not the problem. Ottavio looked at him carefully.
This really had Lucas riled up. His normally relaxed face was furrowed with consternation, making him look almost scared by the soft lamplight. His speech, which was normally slow and impassive, sounded erratic.
“Listen, man. I've worked with you a fair bit,” he said, “And if you say you saw something, then I believe you, you saw something. And you're right, that is weird.”
Lucas nodded in gratitude.
“Thanks, that means a lot,” he said, looking into the bottom of the cup, swirling the remaining liquid absent-mindedly, “I just can't see how anything can disappear like that. They didn't move. They just turned and, poof, they weren't there any more.”
He looked deeply into his cup for a bit longer.
Ottavio ventured, “Are you going to inform Simon or Ali? I'm pretty sure they would want to know about this.”
“Damn it, Ottavio!” groaned Lucas, “I can't. And you can't either! I have been going through this over and over in my head on the trip back, trying to convince myself that I hadn't actually seen anything, or that it was some kind of illusion. Hell, what if my implants really are screwing up?”
“But it can't be an illusion, Lucas. They were on thermal, they left tracks, you obviously made out human forms,” said Ottavio, “Which means you did see something, and what you saw has to be reported.”
“No! That's not going to happen,” said Lucas firmly, “This was just an incident, isolated to that mission. I'm not going to be sticking my head on the block.”
“Aw, Hell! Lucas, do you see what you're doing to me? I've got to report this. Sim is already on my back about not following process. If I don't report this, and it gets out that you told me...”
“I won't say a word. It's not in my interest.”
“They have these rooms bugged! I'm pretty sure they could filter out the noise of a radio if they wanted.”
“Not if I don't have reason to, they won't,” said Lucas, shaking his head, “And you won't tell them either. And if anything does eventuate, not that it will, but if it does, I'll back you up. I just... I just needed to tell someone.”
Ottavio held up his hands in resignation.
“Alright, Lucas, but for the record, and for what it's worth, I think you should tell Simon or Ali or Jung or whoever what you told me, but I guess you won't,” said Ottavio, pouring himself a glass of water, “Failing that, the only other advice I can give right now is to go and have a shower and sleep on it.”
Lucas got up. He had regained his composure.
“Not a word of this to anyone,” he said and walked over to the door.
“And Ottavio?” he said, opening the door wide.
“Yeah?”
“Turn off that damn stereo, man, it's giving me a headache,” said Lucas loudly, closing the door behind him.
“Perhaps Lucas is going crazy,” thought Ottavio, switching off the tunes, “That was almost a joke.”
He rolled back onto his bed and closed his eyes. His optical display faded after a few seconds, allowing him to view the back of his eyelids without interference. Before he could stop himself, he was asleep.