Part 5
Feb. 23, 1965
Tunghwa, China
'The International Academy of Philosophy'
Laura woke up to the sound of torrential rain drumming on the window pane next to her bed. It took a few moments for her to realize where she was and what was happening. The rain outside would be the monsoon rains. Four months really had passed. As her brainwave patterns changed a monitor began to beep and a Chinese doctor entered the room, made notations on her charts, then turned to her to examine her.
"Ni hoa mah. How are you feeling?" He asked with a bow.
"Alright I suppose." Laura replied, releasing a large yawn. Then another realization hit her. The doctor hadn't asked his question in English, nor had she answered in English.
"Holy cow! I just spoke Chinese!" Laura yelled excitedly.
The doctor however wasn't listening, but rather was talking to a young nurse telling her to alert Agent EVA that DELILAH had awakened. The nurse bowed and exited the room.
"Does my Chinese sound alright?" Laura asked enthusiastically. The doctor laughed.
"Perfect."
"What kind of Chinese am I speaking right now?"
"You are speaking very proper Mandarin."
The nurse reentered and told the doctor that Laura was to be cleaned up and brought to EVA in Exposition Hall 2F64. The doctor bowed and exited the room. The nurse, Nurse Xhiu Laura read on her name tag, wheeled a basin of water over on a cart, removed Laura's paper gown, and set about giving her a sponge bath, and washing her long mangled black hair. Then toweled her off and furnished her with loose fitting cotton garments. Laura dressed quickly and followed the nurse to a room in the second floor of the adjacent building. Waiting in a small antechamber was, as always, EVA again in her major's uniform.
"Guten tag, DELILAH. How do you feel?"
"I feel fine. A little different, I suppose. Drowsy though." Laura said confidently and matter-of-factly.
"I am glad to hear it. You certainly seem to have matured these past four months. Your German is perfect, I must say."
"Danke schön. Ich weiß da und hab vielen frühlen."
"Ja," laughed EVA, "Now, the reason I called you here is that a appraisal committee from the General Staff Dept of the Chinese People's Liberation Army would like to examine how your education has taken and what you can do after a four month treatment. Nervous?"
Laura thought for a moment and shrugged.
"Not really." EVA smiled at Laura's response.
"Excellent." She said, "I have some gifts for you."
EVA pulled out a garment bag, laid it on the table, and opened it. Inside was a sneaking suit, identical to the one EVA had worn the night she had kidnapped Laura. Also was a pair of vulcanized rubber soled boots, a soft, elastic nylon fiber balaclava, rubber gripped gloves, a bright white bra, and matching thong.
"Put these on."
Laura was beginning to realize how much she had changed already. Where four months ago, or what felt like a few hours to her, she had felt embarrassed stripping in front of EVA, she now found herself casually slipping off her pajamas and into the lingerie. Her new personality did nothing, however, to alleviate the novelty of the thong, nor, she found, of her augmented breasts. Later, she would have to examine herself more thoroughly. Then she slipped into her suit, and laced up the seams, noticing that with few exceptions it fit her like a glove.
"This is a very special present. It wasn't easy procuring one from the Soviets. Their design is far superior to ours, so our giving it to you can only show how important you are to us."
"It's very tight in the midriff and chest." Laura complained.
"You'll have to cope. The suit is designed to apply varying pressure to various vital organs to optimize their functioning."
"Alright," Laura sighed, "Let's proceed."
EVA produced an M1911A1 pistol and a suppressor and handed them to Laura. Laura took them, screwed in the suppressor tightly, and ejected the clip checking the side ballistics port. Seeing that it was full she replaced it with a sharp thrust of the butt of her right rubber insulated palm, pulled the action back, checking the chamber, and watching a round being injected into the chamber, then holstering it at her thigh.
"Follow me." EVA said, leading her into the next room.
Inside she found five men seated at a table, two in civilian cloths, the other three in military officers uniforms, in a small room illuminated by a dim red light and in front of a massive two way mirror. Behind the glass in a small isolated chamber knelt a rag clad peasant woman and child.
Laura and EVA both stood at attention and saluted the tribunal. Then when a general on the left periphery of the table nodded, EVA briefed Laura.
"Your task is to eliminate the occupants of that room with whatever method you choose. You've never killed before, but you should know what various methods are like from your subliminal education. This test will show us how effectively your conditioning was."
"Who are they?" Laura asked almost in monotone.
"Does it really matter?" One of the civilian observers asked. Laura shrugged.
"Not really. I am just curious as to who I am killing." Again Laura sounded very callous, considering the topic at hand.
"And if we said a simple village woman and her child pick randomly from northern Cambodia?" the peripheral general asked, histrionically waving his pen as he spoke.
"I'd say they are still going to be just as dead."
"Then have at it, Agent DELILAH . . ." EVA gestured toward the door.
Laura walked over to the door, grasped the handle in her tight rubber grip, and held it for a moment. Despite the bravado of her comments to the board a few seconds prior she wasn't so far removed from herself that she didn't understand what was being asked of her, nor forget that right now she was still innocent. In a few seconds she would be a murderer. Although, ironically, she didn't seem to care about doing the act itself, but was sentimental about what it would mean. One breath: in an out. She was ready.
Laura opened the door and walked in. As she stepped into the room and the door closed behind her, she pulled out her balaclava. The woman inside, cringing with her child in the far side of the room got up and stood hunched over from malnutrition and hard labor. She looked at Laura with longing and sorrow in her countenance.
"Please Miss. Please help me and baby." The woman said in broken Chinese. "Help us."
Laura looked at the woman with utter revulsion, taking this instant to pull on her balaclava, adjusting it so that it was straight on her face and her nose fit in the indentation meant for it. It clung tight to her face obscuring her disgusted look, but for what her eyes conveyed. The woman froze where she stood. Laura had taken away the humanity of herself and planted anew the seed of fear in her intended victim.
She kept walking toward the woman with even, unemphasized paces, her hand casually going to the seven inch knife strapped at her shoulder. She unsheathed it slowly, her predator instincts released by the conditioning and her mind lavishing in the thrill of the kill. As it slowly was drawn the light caught on the mirror shine of the blade, blinding momentarily the woman. In that instant Laura pounced on her, breaking into a short bolt, stopping as quickly as she had burst to speed in front of her prey, and with mechanical form, spun her body, lifting her leg erectly upward connecting with the woman's chest. The result was sheer physics. The woman flew backward four feet landing on her back and staggering to her feet some thirty seconds later. Laura circled, waiting, taking in the exhilaration.
As she got up to her feet, Laura grasped her face tightly, her hand covering the woman's mouth and nose, filling her nostrils with the putrid stench of new rubber. A quick yank and Laura had the woman on her feet. With a quick jab, Laura thrust her knife through the ribcage and into the right lung up to the hilt, and then quickly withdrew it. Laura's grasp on the woman's face lightened and moved away from her mouth and nose allowing her to breathe as best she could. She kept the woman close, feeling the effects of her efforts thus far through her own body, which she kept pressed against the woman's in an intimate fashion. She brought the tip to just under the woman's ear, piercing the flesh evoking a shudder and a scream from the woman, muffled by Laura's hand, and drew the blade across the throat severing the carotids, jugular, and with effort, the larynx. Blood cascaded out like a broken water mien and there was a whistling/hissing noise as her left lung discharged what little air it had through the severed larynx.
Laura dropped the corpse on the ground at her feet. Then she slashed at the air, shaking off deposited skin and most of the blood from the knife's blade, sheathing it above her left breast. Then she turned to the corner where the child had fled. Laura looked at him with the hunter's gaze. Her hand instinctively snaked to her thigh, pulling the strap on the holster and grasping the handle of the gun and drew it out, long silencer dragging. The child didn't move, but stood very still. As she raised the gun up and looked down the sights at the point mark, Laura surveyed her prey. At that age and in the unisexual, loose clothing the child was androgynous and without gender. This fact did little to phase her, however. She was an assassin now with blood on her hands and the work ahead was as necessary to her as her inhalation and exhalation of air. The target was squared in the sights. Thp. Thp. The gunshots were but ghosts of a sounds in a room that was sterile and lifeless.
Laura holstered her weapon and exited the room, leaving the quarry where they lay. When she entered the tribunal members were finishing up their notations and their conversations with EVA. Laura only caught a brief bit of what one general said to EVA.
". . . will certainly redeem you to Second Department Chief Luo-Xu. Congratulations on a marvelous success."
Laura stood at attention with her hands at her sides until the tribunal and EVA both acknowledged her. She however kept her balaclava on despite the knowledge that she should take it off during debriefing. Neither the generals nor EVA made a fuss about it they were all congratulations and compliments. Laura listened to them and bowed to them when they had finished. The tribunal members then packed up their briefcases and left the room. EVA and DELILAH were left together.
"Congratulations, DELILAH. You are now an agent of the Philosophers," EVA said with pride, "How does that make you feel?"
"I feel like I am fulfilling my destiny. Like this was always what I was supposed to be doing." Laura said wistfully.
"Now that the trial is over do you want anything?"
"Send Nurse Xhiu to my room, please. I like her."
EVA smiled.
To be continued . . . . . .