Sorry for the longer-than-usual wait, dear readers. And yay, things are happening!
---
The nature of being a small, agile organization was a lack of extraneous personnel; a larger agency could be employing thousands of people, but Berkut had to deal with just its core team of specialists and its far larger contingent of operators. Most of the time, this suited Jonas Bledsoe fine: less people to watch, less people to keep in the loop. However, all of that had been designed from the assumption that Berkut would be called upon to assist other agencies as required; it didn't account nearly as well for cases where they had to do the legwork.
Right there, Bledsoe really, really wanted a team of imagery analysts.
"This is it? You're kidding, right?" was Nathan's reaction. He was staring at a cell phone snapshot of the black & white security footage, which sat somewhere between a recognizable image and a Cubist painting of blotchy tapioca pudding poured onto the sidewalk.
"Can we do anything with it?" Bledsoe asked; Nathan's eyes detached from the crude assembly of pixels and focused on his boss.
We could delete it! was his first thought. We could send Ruth Truewell to a weekend seminar for photography! was another. Or we could search flickr for images tagged "tanker truck Paradise"!
"I could look for logos," Nathan offered, wisely deciding not to jeopardize his paychecks, "but that's about it. Even if there was one, I probably couldn't tell, Mr. Bledsoe. I doubt I could even if we had the original tape here."
"Can we arrange transport?" Truewell asked, her voice echoing from the speakers of the operations center. Her voice was made even tinnier by going through the radio equipment to the repeater in the car, but it had been difficult enough to unseal her Berkut issue phone and take a picture with it all suited up; the last thing she wanted to do was keep it in her hands for the rest of the conversation. "For the tape, I mean."
"We'd have to decon it first," Nathan replied. "Faster if you take the tape and the VCR, decon those, and then hook them up to whatever C3 system they're using for the basecamp."
"Sir?" Truewell asked.
Bledsoe nodded. "Do it. Mr. Ambrose, we'll need a data link to the base camp, then."
"That's the easy part," Nathan confirmed.
"Okay. Truewell, I want you and Dr. Anthros to keep looking in Paradise. If you can, get a positive ID on the agent before you carry the contaminated materials into the camp. Ambrose, I need someone at the NGA and the Idaho DoT."
"Uh-huh," Nathan said. The number of the former, he had memorized for requesting satellite or drone footage; the number of the latter, he wasn't sure whether it even was in the computer's interagency phone directory.
---
Will had kept busy during the call examining some of the bodies in the shop. They all showed the same symptoms: loss of bodily fluids, muscles locking up and blueish lips – asphyxiation the likeliest cause. The positions of the corpses suggested a rapid effect, death within minutes – consistent with a large concentration of potent nerve agent. Will rather doubted that he could have done anything to save those people, even if he had been there with a crate full of autoinjectors at the time of the release.
Then again, if he had been there, he'd have died, too. Chemical weapons don't care who you are.
"Let's go," Truewell said. Will held up a finger in admonition and crouched over a body – then grabbed the dead women's clothes and started trying to strip her. "...I don't think you should be doing that," Truewell added.
"She's hardly going to complain, is she?" Will shot back. "Bledsoe's right. We've figured out the mechanism of action, but that still leaves a variety of actual agents with different safety precautions, not to mention we still need to figure out how it got into these people. I just have to be sure, both agent and vector."
"At the risk of stating the obvious, Dr. Anthros, we're wearing respirators. You said an aerial vector…"
"…is most likely, yes," Will mumbled. "I know exactly what I said, but I was still working with the lab results from a man who not only survived and had already received treatment, but may also have nanoactive blood. These people, on the other hand…"
The woman's blouse ripped to the tune of splitting fabric, and Truewell watched the macabre play. Unlike an unconscious body – essentially, a slack and loose ragdoll – the woman's body was rigid like a mannequin, betraying little flex to her limbs or pose. Will discarded the ripped-up blouse and set to work on her left arm, but found that it wouldn't budge.
"I'm not the biggest fan of CSI," Truewell said, "but should the rigor mortis be that advanced? It seems pretty fast to me."
"CSI," Will said, "the original or Miami?"
"Original. Sunglasses don't do it for me."
"It's summer, it was hot out there and it's still warm in here, that can accelerate the process," Will said, "at least that's what I remember from my forensic pathology class. But organophosphates lock the muscles, too, so a full-body rigor doesn't really tell us anything about their time of death." He tried the arm again, slipped off it and raised his hand to wipe his brow before remembering the NBC suit. "Isn't there something you can do?" he asked.
"Well, is there?" she replied. "I have the video, Mr. Bledsoe knows what's up, why are you still molesting that poor woman?"
"Injection marks," Will said, and with a renewed heave he moved the arm, to the sound of a crunch that was far more effective at summoning the bile from Truewell's stomach than any of the previous irritants. She kept it down, barely, but it left her leaning against the next wall making soft gagging noises while Will droned on. What a great time for a lecture.
"VX could also be administered by injection," he said, "though I have a hard time seeing how they could do a whole town like this. Maybe a –" he paused briefly while he forced the newly dislocated shoulder upward – "maybe they're using nanobots as a time delay mechanism! I mean, I know I've floated this before, but it would explain the presence of what I thought were anthrocyte remnants, and it means they needed far less agent than saturating the air all over town. This way, they'd only have to set up some sort of trigger to drop everyone at the same time. I'd have to do some simulations on the lab on the chemical reactivity, though. I don't think you want those breaking down in the bloodstream unpredictably, which limits the initial exposure window to days, if not hours…"
"This is sick…" Truewell said, speaking those three words with the same effort it would require to pull yourself back onto the ice after an involuntary trip through the thin cover of a winter lake.
"No doubt," Will said, checking the woman's armpit and the hollow of her elbows before moving on to the other arm and applying another, though less protracted pulling motion to it. That crunch was faster, if not necessarily less nausea-inducing. "Time-release organophosphate capsules…that would take a truly demented mind to create and use, nevermind the technological sophistication. I think we can shelve that one for now. As for other methods, skin contact would work, nerve agents were designed as contact poisons, after all. Oh, in that case –"
Truewell looked at him, her chest heaving from heavy breaths. "Yes?"
"We need samples of water in the sinks, soaps, lotions, anything that people could be putting on their skin. When I'm done with searching her skin for needle marks, I'll need to check some of the usual suspects for traces."
"The usual suspects?" Truewell asked, not so keen on what she somehow knew the answer would be.
"Mucous membranes. I can hardly check her digestive tract or her lungs without a proper autopsy, but I can take smears from inside her nose, her mouth, her –" Will suddenly paused, looked over to Truewell and rethought his approach. "You know," he continued. "Other places."
Behind her full-face mask, Truewell blinked.
"…soaps and lotions, you said?"
---
Ruth Truewell knew that something inside her head was going the wrong way when they passed a corpse on the street and she had the strongest feeling of already having seen it before. Her air tank had dipped below the one hour mark a few steps ago, and the emotional effects of that change in the scenario would have been fascinating to watch and evaluate if they hadn't been happening to her. How simply flipping one digit in a display to a zero could produce stress reactions…Truewell kept it together. Mostly because she knew she had to.
They had gone back to drop the samples into the car's trunk, but Will had decided to take his portable lab case with him after that. The lab was arguably necessary for their job, but also a burden on his steadily decreasing strength. It wasn't that Will was spectacularly out of shape (though he could have stood to skip a few less gym visits), but the heat and moisture inside the protective suit rapidly climbed to a fairly accurate simulacra of tropical climate. Add his pre-existing fatigue, and Truewell held an honest intellectual curiosity as to how he still managed to be on his feet.
It wasn't a stretch to imagine the two of them aware of both their own and each other's exhaustion, physical and psychologically, so they shared the same sincere relief when they reached the mayor's house. It was an immaculate two-storey building with a trim front lawn, a white picket fence and a US flag waving from an angled pole mounted beneath a window on the second floor. Will had to force the image of a hot, crusty apple pie from his mind.
"Eagle 2, this is Eagle 3," said the radio with a reasonable reconstruction of Agent Brown's voice, "have you found anything yet? Over."
"Lots of bodies, Eagle 3," Truewell said. "But nothing solid yet, over."
"Understood. Eagle 2, do you have a phone with you? Over."
Truewell and Will exchanged a glance at that. If Will had been on the radio, he would have dismissed this as a very, very weird question.
"Eagle 3," Truewell said, "you can reach us under seven zero seven five five five six niner five zero, over."
"Got it. Eagle 3 over and out."
Truewell noted that Will's glance hadn't left her.
"What was that about?" he asked.
"Either he's fishing for a date in the wrong place," Truewell replied, "or he doesn't want to be heard on the radio." She switched her radio's channel and motioned for Will to do the same. "Mr. Ambrose, are you listening?"
"Sure," Nathan replied. "There just isn't anything else for me to do here, right now."
"I suspect that I will be getting a phone call on this line in a few moments," Truewell explained. "I need radio silence on your end and a copy of the recording run through the standard voice tests."
Nathan's reply (a long breath for the big finale windup to a "Get in line, honey" finisher that, in retrospect, didn't seem all that brilliant) was interrupted after the voiced velar plosive consonant by the click sound of someone's call being taken by the car's repeater and jacked into the radio channel. Properly hushed by operational demands, he turned 80% of his attention back to the image of the tanker.
"Hello?" Truewell began. As opening gambits in phone conversations went, it was a well-worn one.
"Yeah, this is Brown," Agent Brown said, subvocally unsatisfied with this mode of communication. "Do you have your radio turned off? I don't need Fleming hearing this."
"Sure," Truewell lied. Well, Fleming wasn't listening. That part was true.
"Good, because I have a message for you." His voice cooled and flattened. "We want Jaime Sommers."
It was a good thing Nathan had muted his headset. Otherwise, his loud scream of "What?" might have ruined the mood.
"This is a demonstration," Brown continued, "of our abilities. By midnight, we will contact Sommers. If she does not follow our instructions to the letter, we will attack a major metropolitan area of our choice. Our most conservative simulation places the number of casualties north of 100,000 people."
"That is…!" Will managed to babble.
"Who exactly are we speaking to?" Bledsoe's voice cut in. The illusion of a private chat on the phone, if it had ever existed, faded rapidly.
"It is not in our interest to give you that information, Mr. Bledsoe."
Nathan's outcries exceeded any measure of decency in both volume and vocabulary.
"I don't particularly care what your interests are," Bledsoe replied, his voice still cool. "If you want to survive this night, now's the time to give up."
"Mr. Bledsoe, please don't debase yourself with idle threats. We wouldn't be talking if there was any chance of you stopping us. Now, remember: Jaime Sommers by midnight, or you'll have to explain to your superiors how you lost a major city. I trust we understand each other."
There was a click on the channel, followed by a brief silence. Nathan was still cursing under his breath, not ready to switch his headset back on. Truewell's thoughts raced. Will felt his head swell up with population figures and LD50s.
Jonas Bledsoe took a deep breath and pinched the bridge of his nose.
"You all heard it," he said, "and it doesn't change our game plan. So, I'll leave you to your work. I need to make a few phone calls."
---
In the Sommers household, talking with your mouth full wasn't just a flagrant breach of etiquette; it was also a communication killer. Becca, to her credit, was a virtual expert in reading lips, even those of strangers, and was familiar enough with Jaime that her lack of hearing almost never mattered in a conversation. However, all of that went out of the window at the dinner table, where overlaying mumbling with chewing motions turned an art into a lottery. Consequently, Jaime listened and participated with rather more readable gestures of her whole head.
"So, this personal assistant job," Becca said. "That's what's kept you busy?"
Jaime nodded.
"I mean, it's awesome. I was…honestly, Jaime, this is like the best thing that's ever happened to you, right?"
That nod was slower in coming. Becca, in turn, seemed unsure of what else to say. The thoughts were there – worrying about her big sister, the changes that would have to happen, how she had good news, too, but…the words were lacking. Becca's hand shot up to rearrange a stray strand of hair, tucking it back behind her ear. Her eyes met with Jaime's, but she quickly looked away again.
Jaime couldn't sate her hunger. She didn't know if the implants or the stress were doing it, but whatever it was, it made her eat two bowls of chili and most of the cornbread. The complementary glass of milk went down quickly, too. The sensation of a bloated stomach coupled with still being hungry wasn't comforting; her body needed more energy than it could digest.
Everything was connected, sized to work in a complex web of performance limits. Change a system, and you quickly discover how every change requires dozens of other adjustments, only some of which had been applied to her. Jaime had enough strength to break her own bones, enough energy to become ravenous, enough lightning-fast combat reflexes to feel out of control. Her right hand felt like it should jitter, but the empty glass it held did not sway. With her left hand, Jaime unscrewed the cap from the jug of milk on the table and poured herself another glass, then drank it just as quickly.
"Hey, can you leave some?" Becca asked; Jaime's eyes shot towards her, and she lowered the glass. "You know, for breakfast."
"Uh, sure," Jaime replied. "I'll grab some on the way back tomorrow."
"Cool. There's, ah, there's a couple other things we're running low on, just fyi. I can make a list."
"A list? Look, if it's gonna be groceries, that can wait until Friday."
"Oh, come on," Becca said with a hint of annoyance. "We never buy enough to last the week."
"Hey, it's hard to plan exactly what we need."
"Right. When you took scissors to the newspaper, why didn't you clip out the coupons completely?" Jaime bit her lip, but Becca didn't let her off the hook. "Yeah, I saw that. I guess you thought I wouldn't try reading it."
That went bad way too fast, Jaime thought.
"All I'm saying," Becca explained, "is that we're past that now, okay? You can live a little, stop locking down the food budget, just go out there and do something crazy."
"No," Jaime replied. "We're still on shaky ground. Until my savings hit five figures, we're not taken care of."
"Squirreling and skimping all the way to the top." Becca leaned in and gave her a gentle smile. "Are you ever going to relax, big sister?"
Jaime reciprocated the gesture. "We might not be having much fun right now, but you -" Jaime said it slowly, but also signed it for effect – "are going to college, and you will kick ass and get a degree."
"Or I get a hotshot doctor to fall in love with me, marry me and be my sugar daddy."
"Becca!"
"What? It's been two years, isn't it time you made an honest woman out of him?"
"We're…" Jaime stammered, completely out of right things to say. "It's complicated."
Becca didn't phrase her reply in the form of words. Instead, she rocked back in her chair, rolling her eyes in the same motion.
"Why does everything in your life have to be so difficult, Jaime?" Becca asked.
"Somebody up there has it in for me, I guess," Jaime replied.
I need to speak with you, Bledsoe whispered into her skull. Jaime closed her eyes. Yes, that would be asking for it.
"Becca, I have to pack some stuff for tomorrow." Jaime let her hand sweep over the plates and glasses on the table. "Would you mind?"
"But FarSight's on in five minutes. Hey, can we budget for a TiVo now?" Becca gave her best impression of an innocent pout. "I could take care of more chores after dinner if I didn't have to worry about missing my shows, you know?"
"Just…put them in the sink," Jaime replied, desperate to exit the dialogue. "I'll wash 'em later, okay?"
This was unusual, but to Becca's clear advantage, so she did not raise an issue with it. Jaime, meanwhile, rushed away from the table.
---
Back in her room, Jaime slammed the door shut behind her and leaned against it. For a second, she tried to be mad at herself, but it wouldn't happen. For all the strength with which Jaime wished it wasn't so, the big lie really hadn't changed anything in the way she interacted with her little sister. It was just another piece on a pile of things she wouldn't share with Becca.
"Oh, hey, by the way," Jaime whispered to herself. "I'm actually a cyborg now. I fight world terrorism. The personal assistant thing, that was stretching it a little bit."
I'm sorry, Miss Sommers, Bledsoe's voice came in a mocking tone, is this a bad time for you?
Jaime's voice echoed the exhaustion her body didn't feel. "What do you want now?"
A situation has developed. We need you mobile for the next few hours.
"…mobile?"
We're currently dealing with a threat against you. Frankly, they know more about us than I am comfortable with, so we can't be sure that your location or any of our safe houses isn't already on their target list.
Jaime felt herself stiffen up. Her hands grabbed the P226 from the desk and loaded the magazine; the stray bullet stayed on the desk. Her eyes followed the Berkut bag onto the bed.
"Is Becca safe?" she asked, tucking the weapon back into the security compartment of the bag and slinging it over her shoulder. Her mind wasn't racing. There was no anxiety, no uncertainty about her next steps. Gather equipment. Maintain communications. Evade surveillance.
We've considered a possible hostage scenario, Bledsoe said in a warm, paternal tone of voice. Well, as warm and paternal as Jaime had ever heard him, anyway. Your sister isn't a likely target. We will keep our guards on station, of course, but the threat is against you specifically. If we can keep you out of their reach, it might frustrate them into exposing themselves with an overt action.
"Anywhere in particular you want me to go?" Jaime asked. It sounded like she was inquiring as to which flaming hoop she should tackle first.
I like federal buildings, myself, Bledsoe said. Tell them the DoD will authenticate you. If anybody tries to stop you on the street, you do what it takes to get away. Can you handle that?
Jaime heard herself say "Got it."
---
Ruth Truewell and Will Anthros walked into Mayor Peters's house with a newfound sense of urgency. They had no time to search everything, but Truewell bagged a few bottles and food items for later testing while Will tossed the Mayor's desk for documents. Truth be told, it took him four minutes to determine that none of the copious pieces of paper on, in or nearby the desk held anything obviously related to the attacks. If anything was in there to be found, it would be discovered by careful forensic analysis and cross-referencing over a period of days, if not weeks. Will braced his hands on the desk, coiled his arms and then sent a quick slap onto the faux-oak desktop. He closed his eyes and sighed. God freaking damn it, how could anyone have blindsided them – and, by extension, the entire US government – that badly?
"I think I've got something," Truewell said, inexplicably standing next to him. He looked at her as if she'd said something right. "I followed a whirring sound outside," she explained as they walked to the already opened back door of the house. "I don't think it's a regular air conditioning unit."
Will's eyes swept the grass (slightly overdue for mowing), a small bike with a green frame and training wheels, and a dog house. A trail of vomit and feces stretched from slightly in front of its entrance all the way inside. Will tried to imagine what a dying dog would sound like. He couldn't come up with a good answer for that. Truewell pointed him to the fan assembly mounted to the wall. He had to admit that he didn't have a solid grasp on how external air conditioning units were supposed to look, and said as much.
"The thing is," Truewell explained, "there are no vents in the house. None. I saw a regular external AC unit mounted in one of the windows, but this one seems to be cooling a storage room of some sort."
"Storage, huh?" Will said. "Did you check?"
"The room doesn't have any windows, and the door…it looked like it sealed. We passed it on the way here, did you see it?"
"No, I – I wasn't paying attention." He turned to Truewell. "I think the nootropics are wearing off."
"Nootropics? Like, modafinil?"
Will laughed nervously.
"I'm sort of running a drug trial," he said.
"Experimenting with untested drugs is a dangerous pastime, Dr. Anthros. Not to mention that it affects your mission capability. And you lied to me, you told me you're on stimulants."
"It is a stimulant cocktail," Will insisted, as if the 'irritated' switch in his head had been flipped. "Just not an amphetamine, I don't do so well on speed."
"I can't really judge that without knowing what you're on, can I?" Truewell shot back. "We need to get out of here. You're not reliable and the tape needs to be analyzed as soon as possible."
"Sure, after we check the room."
"…after we check the room," Truewell agreed, though not without gnashing her teeth. "Of all the times to pull a stunt like this…" she added.
"Put it in your report," Will said, "and I'll feel suitably chastised."
The door was sealed, Will concluded after a brief inspection. There was a tough rubber lining surrounding it, sealing against the frame from the sides, the top and the bottom, and the door's handle wasn't articulated – instead, a keypad was affixed to the wall next to the door.
"Can we break it down?" Truewell asked.
"I don't think so," Will said. "It looks like a safe room. The door's probably thicker than some of the walls in here. Separate air supply…oh, fuck me."
"What?"
"It's got a filter. This damn thing has an air filter mechanism inside. He was expecting the attack."
"An attack," Truewell cautioned. "And why didn't he go inside?"
The question handily drew an answer in the form of a knocking sound. It took Truewell a moment to realize that it came from inside the safe room; a glance at Will confirmed that he was too lost in his own thoughts to contribute any situational awareness to the issue. With a tacit move, Truewell knocked on the door.
There was a crackling sound from what Truewell realized was a speaker grille above the keypad in the wall, and then the voice of a little girl filled the hallway.
"Daddy?" she cried. "Can I come out now, Daddy?"