CHAPTER 2 - FEAR-INDUCED TRAUMA
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SUMMARY:
Even though Ari made a mess of his mission, he still got the job done. That's all that really matters. Plus, now he has something to look forward to at the end of his day…assuming things don't get any messier.
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"Batchelder, man…They're going to skin you alive for that little stunt."
"Pfft. I'd like to see them try." Lie number one.
"You're seriously not at all worried?"
"Nah, not at all." Lie number two. Ari knew that his actions throughout the pursuit and capture of the girl would be considered reckless, and he would be told that he'd jeopardized the mission. He also knew the standard response to those offenses all too well, and his body tensed merely thinking about it—he wouldn't quite be skinned alive, but it certainly wouldn't be pleasant. "This kind of thing happens all the time," he continued. "They can afford to cover it up. Besides, at the end of the day, they're still getting exactly what they wanted."
"I mean, sure. If you say so. Hey, do you know what they're even going to do with her?"
"Not a clue." Lie number three. Ari had a pretty good idea of what they planned to do with her. He'd been the one surveilling her and building her file, after all, and had been begging for the green-light to bring her in for nearly three weeks. On top of what he suspected they had on the docket, Ari had some plans of his own. At the end of the day, he would get exactly what he wanted, too.
His assigned accomplice hummed in thought, leaning back in the passenger seat and toying with the feedback screen of the tracking device. "Well, I sure hope they return her to our unit when they're done. She looks fucking tasty." Ari couldn't hold back an amused snort, understanding his partner's insinuation before he'd finished sharing it. "Y'know? In more ways than one."
Ari sniggered. He didn't have the same "tastes" as some of the others, but he did understand and agree with the sentiment. She was certainly appetizing, and he'd been craving her for weeks—since the first piece of grainy camera footage that revealed her face came through. "You're not wrong."
"Honestly though, it's not fair. How did you get this assignment in the first place? The usual targets aren't nearly as enticing." The other man tossed the tracking device onto the dashboard casually and reached for his black thermos of coffee.
"Guess I'm just damn lucky," Ari professed, corners of his mouth pulled up into a crafty smile. Lie number four. He was neither lucky nor had he been assigned this task by chance.
"You're telling me," his partner chuckled. "How was it, fighting her? Is she any good?"
"Oh. Yeah, she's…pretty good." Ari sighed a little, thinking about her body on top of his, pinning him down after that tricky little tackle. When she'd leaped onto him, bringing him to the ground…it had tickled one of his long-repressed memories. He didn't like how that felt, but he'd found himself oddly reassured by the location of their skirmish. An alley. Not a subway tunnel. That had been a distracting thought pattern, and he was happy to forget it in favor of the distracting view of Ivy atop him. In those first few moments, as his vision spun a little, the view had been especially interesting. The edges of her outline were a little bit blurry, and she looked like a glowing, flaming mirage. Powerful. Dangerous. With her weight on his chest, she'd been so confident in her ability to dominate. She'd made a rookie mistake in assuming that he had the strength and reflexes of a human. Then he thought about his body on top of hers. He did like how that felt. He'd been overly confident in his ability to dominate her, too, of course, but it hadn't mattered. She was in his clutches and that was everything. Her small frame was trapped beneath his, writhing. His mouth had been so agonizingly close to her face, her neck. Just revisiting the memory was making Ari's blood boil with longing.
But that groin strike. Yikes. Ari cleared his throat and continued. "All of her strikes were pretty vicious—definitely meant to end a fight before it could really start. A human would've been trashed after one round. That means she probably doesn't have experience with extended combat, which is convenient for us. But she's strong. Much stronger than she thinks she is." He'd seen the self-doubt growing behind her emerald eyes and had gladly exploited it, but his face and ribs still hurt like hell. There was a good chance of some bruising, and though he would never admit it to anyone, it had been a closer fight than it'd seemed. "Faster, too." He'd barely been able to keep up.
"Interesting," replied the partner, twisting a little to peer through the small barred window to the containment portion of the van. He twisted back, wide-eyed and shaking his head in thrilled disbelief. "Which lab did you say she originally came from?"
"Boston," Ari answered, calling upon his memory of her measly original file. The Boston lab had been a substantial one back in the day, but it had focused more on the logistics of the entire operation and less on the actual experimentation. Therefore, it was strange for a single recombinant to have existed there in the first place but fairly unsurprising that she'd managed to break out. "Escaped in 2009."
The other man whistled. "Makes sense. Fuck. If Boston made all of their freaks look like that and I was made ten years sooner, I might have put in for a transfer."
Ari snorted softly again, shaking his head. If this man had been made ten years earlier he would've been created with a barely sentient brain. He wouldn't have known to want a transfer, let alone to question his placement. The only consistency between what he would've been then and what he was now would be his appetite. He would've wanted to devour the girl either way. Plus, if he'd tried to request any special treatments or transfers ten years ago, he would've been retired on the spot. These days…well, maybe that was still true too.
Besides all that, the Boston lab had been an unfortunate target of a strange rash of arsons not very long after Ivy had escaped. It had already begun to earn an unlucky reputation—after barely scraping by through multiple FBI raids, becoming a favorite picketing location for animal rights activists, and even encountering one very confusing mixup with the Irish Mob—before it burned to the ground. Although the eventual demise of the lab had cost Itex quite a lot, no one much missed it.
Still, if all the freaks looked like Ivy, the world would be an undeniably happier place. "Yeah, same," Ari ultimately agreed, although he had technically been functional for more than ten years and hadn't even known a Boston lab had existed until less than a month ago. He started thinking about Ivy again. How different would things have been if he'd caught her then, right after she'd escaped? Would he even have remembered it? The system was different now—better. Back then, she would've been executed almost immediately, disposed of, and his life would've just gone back to normal. Now, though, she had accrued value.
Ari was ready to cash in on that value.
They were still in downtown Chicago, so they had about a forty-five-minute drive back to the base. Once there, Ivy would have to go through decontamination and conditioning, as well as an extensive intake process. Easily a few hours. Then they'd wait and let her sweat as she considered her position. That'd last for a few days, and that's when Ari could strike. He just needed to hold off for a few more hours. The time would pass quickly. He could keep himself occupied.
But, as he became more and more occupied by his thoughts, he lost track of his actions. The only thing that ultimately pulled Ari back into the moment was the loud keen of a police siren on his tail. Startled, Ari looked down at the speedometer—he was cruising along Lake Shore Drive at a speed nearly double the enforced limit. "Fuck!" he growled, braking carefully and angrily flicking on his turn signal to make his way over to the shoulder. His partner groaned and leaned forward to reach into the glove compartment, pulling out the registration as well as the "legal documentation" that came with the van. He passed both sheets to Ari as the vehicle came to a complete stop.
Grumbling, Ari quickly pulled out his wallet and fished through the small collection of licenses to find the one for Illinois, tucking it between his teeth momentarily to wedge the wallet back into his pocket. Then he gathered up all of the papers and the ID, dropped them into his lap, and draped both hands over the steering wheel to wait.
"Well, this ought to be fun," muttered the partner sardonically, sneaking a quick peek into the containment portion of the van once more. "She's still out cold, at least." Ari nodded wordlessly. That was good news—this would all be easier and faster if she just kept quiet.
A few minutes passed in silence as the two men waited for the police officer to get out of their car. Ari could feel his patience wearing thinner and thinner. He started to contemplate making a run for it. He knew he could ditch the cop. If he hadn't already made such a mess of their mission that day, he probably would have tried. Instead, he made a genuine effort to squelch his frustration—which was almost entirely self-directed—by thinking about how great he'd feel knowing that Ivy was trapped in the same building as him later that day, very much beholden to his whims.
Finally, after what felt like hours, a haggard-looking CPD officer stepped out of his patrol car and made his way forward to the driver's side window of Ari's van, apparently unaffected by the cold winter wind that blustered off the lake. Taking a deep breath, steeling himself to sound polite, and hating himself for getting caught in this situation, Ari rolled down the window and beamed at the officer.
"Good afternoon, sir," he said in a courteous manner, handing over his paperwork before he could be asked for it. "How are you today? Staying busy?"
The cop paused and accepted the papers, apparently surprised to encounter such a friendly future citation holder. "Good afternoon. Thanks for asking—I'm doing fine. Getting a little tired of the holiday season and how it makes city folk drive like they've got a light under their ass, though. On that note, are you aware of the speed limit for Lake Shore Drive?"
"Yes, sir. Forty miles per hour on the North Side. Forty-five on the South."
"And are you aware of how fast you were going, mister...?"
"Batchelder." Ari took a beat, deciding whether or not to play dumb. He concluded that stupidity would be a mistake here. "Yes, sir. I was going about eighty-five."
The officer nodded slowly, clearly pleased to not have to argue with a fool—it sounded like he'd spent the better part of his day doing so. "Yes, you were. Now, I'm sorry to spoil the fun, boys, but you were going more than twice the limit here. Under the new traffic law, that carries a lot more weight. I have to write you a ticket at least, and you'll probably end up going to court." Ha. Right. The citation would be deleted from the city's computer system before Ari even got back to the base. He and his partner nodded somberly as the officer instructed them to stay warm in the van while he returned to his car to run Ari's information. However, the officer returned sooner than he should have—it seemed he'd started reading before he'd even reached his patrol car. The moment Ari got the window back up, he was rolling it down again. The cop questioned, "'Knockout Kidnappings?'" before the window was completely open and brandished the extra sheet of paper.
Feigning a sheepish smile and cursing someone's stupid choice for their phony business's name, Ari explained. "Yes, sir. We work for a company that stages fake kidnappings. Simulated abductions can be ordered by the actual victim as an educational experience or by a friend as a prank, after proper vetting." He made air quotes around the words "kidnappings" and "victim" to emphasize just how corny the whole thing sounded and to make himself seem like an indifferent employee. "Paying clients can also request their preferred level of fear-induced trauma." More air quotes.
The officer just blinked at him from beneath two thick, furrowed eyebrows. He seemed skeptical, maybe a bit intrigued. Finally, he cleared his throat and prodded, "So, you mean to tell me that your actual paying job is to kidnap strangers?" The two men in the van nodded. It wasn't exactly a lie, admittedly. "There's no way that's legal," muttered the cop, scratching his temple and glancing at the papers in his hand.
"I assure you, we only operate within our legal rights. Everything should be there, on that paper." Ari tilted his head to gesture at the sheet in the officer's hands and ignored the angry pounding of his heart.
The policeman nodded, and then his eyes drifted distrustfully to the back half of the van as he started to return to his patrol car. "Alright, well, sit tight while I…look into everything."
Sitting tight proved to be the hardest thing Ari had done that day. In thin silence, he and his partner waited. They each sighed. Ari didn't want to get into more small talk with his accomplice, so he let his mind wander, and as it did, he started to feel his meds wearing off—the telltale ache of his body was returning, seeping slowly into the cracks. Every single one of his muscles felt overexerted and stretched out like saltwater taffy. Turning his head strained every little tendon in his neck. His left knee was locking up, sticking stiffly in its bent position. Ari's back felt like it'd fallen prey to a road roller. His chest burned. He was getting sleepy. All of those aches and issues were pretty standard, but today they were compounded by the minor injuries that Ivy had managed to inflict. Ari's jaw and nose really were tender to the touch, and he was pretty sure she'd bruised some of his ribs with a kick. On top of that, he had a headache forming right behind his eyes, presumably from the way he'd fallen when she'd first lashed out…or possibly from one of the ways she'd hit him in the face.
Sighing again, Ari glanced at the timer of his watch. He still had a bit over an hour until he was due for another dose…but everything hurt so much, and his mood was already tanking from this legal snafu. He just wanted to go home, take a hot shower, and have his way with his new toy. He longed to feel good, or even to just feel kind of okay. So, he decided a premature pill couldn't hurt—in fact, taking one now was the obvious right answer. Ari pulled out the little bottle that he'd slipped into the van's console, popped out a single long, clear liquid capsule, and swallowed it dry.
The effect was almost instantaneous. His body felt warm and the aches and tension melted away, replaced by strength and renewed energy. His headache evaporated and his vision improved. His heart seemed to speed up for a moment before stabilizing as the tightness faded from his chest. Even his mood seemed to improve just a little bit, and he was ready for action.
Ari sucked in a deep breath, relishing the reprieve from his constant painful state. If he didn't have to think about it, he could usually ignore any pain, but just sitting in silence allowed his mind to become too aware. So, he decided, jumping the gun on his timer had been the right call. He'd only done that a handful of times in the past, but he'd never regretted it.
A few more minutes passed as conversational silence extended. The partner gulped down some more of his coffee, staring straight ahead out the window. Strong winter winds scooped up and redeposited bits of highway litter around them and made the van creak and sway noisily. Ari grew more and more irked as his mind continued to wander, and he was about to turn on the radio for a mediocre distraction when the policeman finally returned, papers in hand. Spotting the officer's approach in the side mirror, Ari rolled down the window and readily waited to accept his ticket and be on his way.
"Alright, boys. It sounded like bullshit, but it looks like your kidnapping outfit is legit. I can't imagine how that's legal, but…it'll just be the ticket today. Here." Understandably, the officer looked like he was questioning his worldview and understanding of the human condition as he handed back Ari's license and paperwork, along with a hefty ticket. Ari smiled in faux-resignation as he accepted the little paper stack, unsurprised by this legal conclusion.
"Thanks, sir. Sorry to add more work into your day." Sorrier that they'd wasted so much time.
"Well, it's my job. At least this stop has been educational. Just be smarter and stick to the speed limit, okay? Drive carefully." The cop was a bit pointed, probably as a symptom of the powerlessness that accompanies confusion. He patted Ari's door twice as a dismissal and turned, looking thrown. He walked back towards his car once more and Ari huffed in annoyance, crumpling the ticket into a ball and tossing it into the cup holder on the door as he put the window up and buckled his seatbelt. He reached for the gear shift, ready to continue their travels, and looked into the side mirror to prepare to merge. However, before he could go anywhere, he noticed the cop walking back to his window yet again.
"Ugh, what now!?" Ari growled, rapidly losing his patience at this point and exchanging a glance with his partner as he rolled the window down for what felt like the billionth time. He chomped down on the inside of his cheek to control his flared temper as the officer reached the window. "Yes?"
"Sorry to keep you," the cop muttered. "But…were you in the middle of a kidnapping? Is there someone in the back of your van?"
Ari took a deep breath, mentally preparing for the worst. If the cop wanted to see the inside of the van Ari would have to incapacitate him. That would just kick off an obnoxious chain of events that would take more of the time that he didn't want to give up. He'd have to deal with the officer's dashcam. He'd have to stage the whole encounter to look like a political statement. He'd have to decide whether or not to kill this man…"We were, yes, though it was completely voluntary on the victim's end. Why? You've seen our paperwork, you know that we have—"
"No, no, it's just that your back doors appear to be open now but they were latched when I pulled you over. If the locks are faulty, that might be a hazard for your—"
"What!?" Ari choked, spinning in his seat to look through the small barred window. The containment portion of the van was empty. She was gone. "What the hell—!?" He smashed the button on his seatbelt, releasing the metal clip roughly enough that it snapped back against the plastic frame of the door, leaving a tiny dent. Ari threw the door open and shoved the officer out of the way, false respect for authority eviscerated by circumstance. He dashed to the back of the van, his partner meeting him from the other side, and found that the double doors were visibly cracked. He yanked them open the rest of the way and hopped inside as if expecting to find her there anyway, somehow hidden in the exposed space. Instead, he just found the shackles she'd been in, empty. His eyes zeroed in on a small piece of metal on the floor, and he scooped it up with fast fingers—it was a long zipper pull-tab broken off of the winter coat he'd wrapped her in, bent at a 90-degree angle near one end. She'd picked the locks on her restraints, in addition to the lock on the van door.
How had she been so quiet?
She's getting away, Ari. You need to follow her, quickly. The Voice had been silent for quite a while, and it was incredibly annoying that it had decided to pipe up now only to say something so obvious.
Yeah, no shit, Ari thought back hatefully. Panic and anxiety were already making a home in his chest as he leaped back out of the van and wheeled around, searching. The Voice didn't respond.
Ari's accomplice had dashed back to the cab and now returned with the tracking device. He mumbled something as he tapped buttons and twisted knobs. The screen lit up with a glowing grid and the partner held it up for Ari to see. Ari didn't really need the tracker—he'd already caught her scent—but the confirmation was good. He was out of practice, after all. So, he oriented himself and looked straight ahead in the direction of the rapidly moving red dot that represented Ivy on their map. She'd run into Navy Pier. It would've been a fantastic place to vanish if anyone else was pursuing her. Snarling and bracing himself for the sea of bumbling sightseers, Christmas shoppers, obnoxious children, and pesky vendors, Ari pushed his body into a brisk jog and dove into the humongous tourist trap, carelessly leaving the van parked on the shoulder and ignoring the shouts of the disgruntled police officer.
