Chapter One: Above Deck
The fishing trawler continued on its path, farther into a short safety for the two passengers on board: Aaron Cross and Marta Shearing.
In response to Marta's statement that she wished they were lost, Aaron rolled up the map he had been studying. Surprised and hopeful, he searched her face to ascertain the full meaning of her comment, a brow arched above his piercing, big blue eyes.
Marta smiled back at him briefly then shyly glanced down at her hands when she saw his pleased, teasing look. She nervously folded her hands together, extending them on the table they shared. Unable to resist, Marta hazarded another look back at Aaron to gauge his reaction, wondering if he caught her subtle innuendo.
Aaron leaned back in his chair, a bit smug, smiling directly back at her. Marta held his gaze boldly until his intense, penetrating stare caused her to blush. She refocused on her hands clasped before her. She sensed him leaning forward then saw his one big right hand overtake both of hers. Marta felt happy relief and looked back at Aaron with open, if timid, affection. His own smile softened and they enjoyed an extended moment in silent admission of a new intimacy shared between them.
Finally, Aaron thought. He had waited forever for any hint of progress in his pursuit of the doctor. In their encounters at the medical research center over the years, he always made clear his attraction to her. But she never encouraged or accepted his advances. Until now, he thought, delighted.
Sporting a triumphant grin, Aaron said, "That only took about four years."
"Well, at Sterison-Morlanta you were the patient and I, the doctor," Marta said, with mock superiority and a coy smile. "You certainly didn't make it easy, but I had to maintain professional objectivity."
"Right; the mad scientist analyzing her lab monkey. Number five," Aaron chuckled. He heard the tinge of bitterness in his laugh. The inferiority complex that lingered from his earlier life as Kenneth was a common issue he battled regularly. Aaron knew he was being overly sensitive, but Marta's tone rubbed him the wrong way. "You wouldn't see me, the man, no matter how hard I tried. You looked straight through me, to the cells in my body and the synapses in my sorry excuse for a brain."
Marta's smile dimmed. "It wasn't allowed. You with your 'attractive appearance' comments. I had a job to do, which you continually tried to undermine."
"For damned good reason, if so, don't you think?" Aaron retorted. He sat up rigidly, taking his hand with him.
Her hands abandoned, Marta folded her arms across her chest. "I warned you they were watching. It was noted that you were increasingly combative with the entire process. You were already so cocky and rebellious. Of course, I tried to discourage your behavior."
"My behavior," Aaron grunted indignantly and shook his head. His eyes left hers and stared out over the ocean. They sat, silent in their own dark thoughts, with only the sound of gentle waves buffeting the boat.
Marta reflected on the recent past and the man she had known as Five. Finally, she broke the silence. "I could tell right away you were different from the others. I remember thinking you were so self-assured, so confident. Aware."
"Don't you mean combative, cocky and rebellious?" Aaron challenged.
"Dangerous," Marta clarified with a wry twist of her lips. "You were one to be handled with caution."
"By you?" Aaron asked, his expression hard.
Marta was expecting a flirtatious response. "By you?" was a question that should have worked in that context, but she was thrown off by his accusatory tone.
Confused, she stammered, "The project. You were a danger to the project, because you had begun showing resistance. You were a valuable asset to our research. So, for the integrity of the experiment and the success of the program, yes," Marta admitted, "You had to be controlled. And, as your doctor, it was my responsibility to handle it."
Aaron pushed himself away from the table. "The beautiful, frigid doctor – my handler," he said caustically.
Marta sat back in her seat, her lips parted in surprise at the abrupt turn in their conversation and his insult. Breathing back the hurt in her voice, she replied, "Maintaining professionalism is not being frigid, Aaron. The work at Sterison-Morlanta was my greatest achievement in a career I spent my whole life building. That job was my entire existence. I was not about to risk it for anything."
Remorseful, Aaron exhaled heavily as he calmed. He hadn't meant to take out his lingering resentment on Marta. "I know. I'm sorry, I didn't mean it. That was a dick thing to say."
"Then why did you?" Marta asked, still stinging. She registered feeling a twinge of guilt, but couldn't imagine why.
Aaron's hand rose to his forehead and massaged his temples as if nursing a headache. "An a**hole part of me only said that to punish you for your involvement. I was out of line. And I really didn't mean it – I know you're not frigid."
"You can be sure I am now!" she retorted.
He couldn't help but laugh. The mood lightened a little. Mentally kicking himself, Aaron admitted aloud, "Well, I screwed that up royally."
Marta sighed. "I thought we were past this."
"We are," Aaron assured her. He hesitated to say it, but went on, speaking from experience. "It's like your house, though. You need to face the past and set it ablaze yourself, to move forward. It wasn't your choice to leave it behind, so it's even more critical to take that stand now."
"Oh, I burnt my past," she replied. "My life is in ashes! You've made it clear I can't go back. And you're right; I know it. I would be assassinated if I tried to return to my old life, the job I love. All the training I spent my whole life acquiring, all my skills – wasted. I sacrificed so much for that work, for science."
"Yeah, me too", Aaron muttered.
Thinking he was belittling her loss, Marta thought of Peter and the choice she had made for her career over the possibility of a life of love and family. "My work was everything to me. It is who I am."
Words heavy with the weight of her grief, Marta said, "Now, I am no one. And I, quite literally, have nothing."
Aaron sat quietly watching her, waiting for the horror of her words to sink into her consciousness.
When Marta finally looked up at him, there was no understanding dawning. By his estimation, it was just sick, selfish sorrow.
Marta was dumbfounded by his look of disgust. "What?", she demanded.
"That work is who you are?" Aaron asked, his voice harsh. "That work you loved?"
Bewildered, Marta blinked back at him, not comprehending why Aaron was so upset. He was leveling a personal denunciation of her, that much she understood. But she had every right to mourn the loss of the life she was forced to leave behind. Being a research scientist was her identity and, yes, she loved it. She was proud of her accomplishments, of her groundbreaking work.
Marta was about to say just that when she saw Aaron's expression more clearly. There was not only revulsion, there was pain. What was he reacting to so strongly? Her love of work, she thought. And what was that exactly? Human experimentation on America's soldiers for nefarious purposes – on him. It was worse than that. They used a vulnerable, mentally-challenged Kenneth Kitsom who most likely had no idea what he was signing up for.
Aaron had called himself her lab monkey. Marta felt the boat's deck lurch as a wave of nausea hit. "I feel seasick," she said shakily. He reached to steady her.
Marta reeled, rocked not by the boat, but a rush of crushing emotions. Not without pity, Aaron watched her suffer a similar reaction he himself had already experienced not many years ago. "I felt the same way once, back in Iraq," he said with true empathy.
Giving her a minute to breathe, Aaron continued. "Seasick on desert ground." His blue eyes squinted, as if peering under a blinding sun into a scene far away. "For a split second, I thought I was caught in quicksand." He paused to shake the haunting memory from his mind – the feeling of being sucked down to hell alive when realization of what he was involved in hit home.
He remembered somehow making it back to the transport. But the colonel, Eric Byer, saw his struggle. Sin-eater. That's what Byer called him, to cast aside any responsibility of their actions. It was bulls**t.
"I wish I could tell you the guilt fades, but it doesn't. It shouldn't." Aaron consoled himself with the fact that he felt remorse, at least. He didn't think Byer did. "You can't change what you've done, so you have to live with it. The best you can do is let it mold you for the better."
The churning in Marta's stomach was replaced with an anger that intensified unreasonably. She didn't stop to think why. He was condemning her for her part in Outcome. Aaron blamed her personally for what was done to him and still held it against her. Enough to want to punish her. "I should let my guilt mold me for the better?" she said slowly, indignant. "You volunteered for the program. You signed up for the license to kill. I didn't murder anyone."
It was Aaron's turn for confusion. Why the hell was she so mad?, he wondered. He didn't say she was responsible for murder. Though, come to think of it, he was pretty sure she was.
Marta kept on with her rant. "What about your guilt, Aaron? Have you really let it mold you for the better? Defending yourself with lethal force against other agents I can understand. Yet I seem to remember at least one innocent guard you killed in cold blood, just two days ago, viciously snapping his neck when he was just doing his job. How many other innocents have died at your hand, would you say?"
She waited for his reaction, expecting to feel victorious in her argument. Or, at the very least, more justified in her actions, as compared to him.
Wow, Aaron thought, dumbfounded over her sudden attack. She certainly paid him back for the frigid comment. But she was right; he was a killer. Aaron made no attempt to hide his anguish. He knew he was damned for the things he had done and, despite fighting his all against it, continued to do.
Marta realized the effect of her words too late to take them back. She gutted the man she had harmed with her work – this man that saved her, despite what she had done to him. Marta's eyes squeezed shut in shame. Her ire fell, and she would have willingly sunk to the bottom of the ocean floor with it.
"Aaron..." she groaned, contrite and reaching for him to thwart his inevitable retreat. He avoided her touch and stood to escape.
Aaron knew it wasn't fair to leave this way, but he was done talking and needed the solitude of the crew's empty quarters. He left the sunny upper deck behind and headed towards the bowels of the ship.
Abandoned, Marta sunk back into the chair, heavy with remorse. She hung her head in her hands and succumbed to the flood of overwhelming guilt she deserved to drown in.