Chapter 11

Check please...

Present Day

Gary, IN

Everyone split of into different cliques upon entering the sports bar. Marta, Paige, Malana, and Ashley got a table together. Bourne and Nicky sat at the table behind them, followed by Marta and Arron. Allen, Paz, and Kirill sat at the bar where most of the others initially gathered before spreading out.

The only person that sat alone and was antisocial was the man Jason had been in the SEALS with, Khanh Nazari, who quietly drank his beer at the far end of the bar. Bourne saw him looking at him several times and wasn't sure if it was one of those awkward coincidental glances, or if he was staring; he figured it was probably a little of both.

The bartender and manager were flabbergasted at suddenly being slammed, not having a night that busy in years.

Bourne asked Nicky quietly, "So, what's the deal with Ashley?"

"Oh. Her mom was a CEO. She died of ALS…"

"Lou Gehrig's Disease?"

Nicky nodded, "She was basically her mothers nurse for three years and is use to getting things and anticipating needs. I needed a pair of hands anyway, so it worked out… She'd make a hell of a logistics officer."

Bourne felt motion behind him, "…I also have a keen sense of hearing, as well as a mutant superpower!" Ashley said, leaning into their booth.

"I'm sorry… That was rude," he offered.

She shook her head, "No, it's rude to ask me to my face. Either way she isn't any less dead…"

Then both tables were suddenly morbid and Marta tried to break the silence, "…and your super power?"

"I don't require sleep- well I need four hours ever two weeks, or I hallucinate."

Everyone laughed but Marta, "You have a swapped base pair in the DEC2 gene?"

Ashley suddenly looked trapped on the inside of the booth, "No, Marta!"

"Yes, you do-"

Ashley cut her off, "Yes I have it; No you can't poke me, scrape me, strap me to a table, or put electrodes on me. I'm through with that! I like you Marta, but please don't ask me…"

Marta clearly looked dejected and Malana quickly inserted, "I'm completely double jointed!" and she folded her fingers backwards, then her elbows.

Paige declared, "I can do anything with my feet that I can do with my hands," the other women tittered and she blushed not having thought of the sexual context.

Reina laughed, "My stomach is vertical- not horizontal."

Everyone looked confused but Nicky piped in, "It has more room to expand- she can win eating contests. That's how that little 110 lbs Japanese guy always wins…"

"Nicky?" Ashley probed.

She shook her head no bashfully, obviously holding back. Something clicked in Jason's head, "She's a member of Mensa…"

"Huh, what's that?" Ashley was clearly confused as Nicky's eyes darted around the table embarrassed.

Marta managed to stop gaping at Nicky and explained, "An NFL stadium is about fifty-thousand people. Fill up two of those and she's probably the smartest one there…"

"Wow!" Ash was clearly impressed.

"Jason?" Reina asked.

"I… I… don't know."

Nicky jabbed in retaliation, "He has an identical twin." She grinned evilly, "They used to switch girlfriends in High School…"

The women looked scandalized until Nicky finished, "Jokes on him though; his high-school sweetheart liked the change- she married his brother!"

They all laughed as he blushed and proclaimed, "Okay! We've shared enough," which extolled another round of laughter.

He turned back around and spoke lower and asked Nicky in French, [Is that true?]

She nodded, still grinning mischievously.

Anxious to take advantage of the elation he asked, [So, what's the deal with the guy from the SEALS…]

[Khanh Nazari…? Oh,] she tried to sweep her hair behind her ears but lacked the ability. [You were both in the same unit…]

[Yeah, you said that…] he said tersely, knowing she was being evasive.

[Well, you were really tight. He was a pallbearer at your funeral… He stayed at your mom's for the service… He took your death really hard. He… took a medical out for a while.]

[That's it…? I should ask him to join us.]

"No!" she snapped as he started to get up, to which he raised an eyebrow. [He needs time. He's having to deal with the fact that: you basically lied to him by faking your death, that you're alive, and that you have no fucking idea of who he is.] Her uncharacteristic vulgarity made him pause. [Jason, just give him a couple of days. Let him come to you. He's like a wounded predatory animal right now- if you approach him your just going to get attacked. If you don't trust me- Nicky, trust Dr. Parsons. I know from experience: remember Alexanderplatz? You WERE going to blow my head off- thinking I betrayed you…]

"I didn't-" she rolled her eyes and he relented, "Okay, fine. You're right. So, I can't play twenty questions with Khanh, but I can with you. What the fuck is wrong with me?"

"Oh boy… Is it too late to change my mind?" He glared at her, suddenly enraged. "Well if we are going down this road, I need another drink. Rum and coke, no ice." He got up to leave and she tried to grab his hand out of reflex and winced in pain. She said through gritted teeth, "tall glass with a straw please," and held up her bandaged hands.

He nodded and waited at the bar for an obscene amount of time between Paz and Kirill who were betting on a UFC match. "You guys do alright with the ladies, right?"

Paz raised an eyebrow and shrugged feinting modesty, Kirill laughed and grinned like the cat that ate the canary. "I need some insight, if a woman told you…"

"Hell Jason, I'm the ladies man around here… shoot!" Goens pipped up from behind him. They all scoffed. He held his arms out wide, "Fellas! I'll put my money where my mouth is, five hundred bucks says I can give the best answer to his question… Prove me wrong!" Kirill laughed and Paz held up his hands in surrender.

Bourne nodded, "Okay, I'll play." Each handed a wad of cash to the other two men who would judge the response separately. "If a woman told you 'It was very difficult for me- with you…' what would that mean in the female vernacular?"

Allen laughed, sipped his beer and then said flippantly, "She's a lesbian, but she totally has the hots for you." All three men laughed and they started to hand the money to Jason. "Wait!" he pleaded. He put his hand on Jason's shoulder and looked deeply into his eyes a said the words lovingly, 'It was very difficult for me- with you… you're not like other men," he added.

All three went slack jawed, he reached out and took both wads of cash, and intoned in a fairly good Elvis impersonation, "Thank you- thank you very much!"

They heard Marta waspishly scold from behind them with an English accent, "You three should be ashamed of yourselves! I see we are still fond of sharing Mr. Bourne!"

"Three?" Allen inquired.

"At least I expect it from you Mr. Goens!" she glared at Bourne and stormed back to her table.

Paz asked quietly, "She always sound British, or just when she's angry?"

"The later…" Bourne sighed.

Goens added on bated breath, "Well I need to marry her then; she should always sound like that…"

Having seen hundred dollar bills being passed around, the bartender served them in short order. Jason returned to his table and began to ply Nicky with drinks, which turned out to be no easy task; she came from a long line of alcoholics.

"Okay well this is all speculation; not fact. I started asking a lot of questions- in Paris, about the medication I was dispensing; too many questions. Conklin basically warned me that I was going to get myself terminated if I kept prying and he didn't mean my employment…"

"Medication?"

"Yeah, pills… They didn't even name them. Blues, reds, yellows, whites… Just colors. The assets had a lot of weird side effects, especially if they missed doses or overdosed. Migraines, insomnia, lapses in judgment, sensitivity to light…"

She took a long sip from her straw, but Bourne knew better than to interrupt. She kept secrets from him in order to have power over him and she was about to give some of that power up.

"They were resolute in not giving me information." She paused for a long moment, her eyes closed, "So, I was determined to find out. I tried to steal one of each type but they count every pill- every one. So, I started shaving them." He raised an eyebrow, "I started scraping a tiny bit off each pill, I'm talking about the size of a grain of sand, until I had a enough to experiment on. It was more than drugs, much more. They were playing God Jason. I think they were trying to alter your DNA…"

"What?" he said in complete disbelief.

"Something Marta said sealed it. She said she was a virologist and geneticist that worked for a pharmaceutical company that was a cover for a DOD operation. She said she was working on altering the human genome. She was one of the Doctors that created the meds! She knows exactly what's in it, what it did, and what it was supposed to be doing." He bolted up, she knew he was about to pull Marta into a dark room somewhere, she tried to grab his hand again and squeaked in pain. "Sit," she breathed.

He sat down, realizing Marta probably wasn't keen on seeing him again just yet.

"So, I've been trying to find out the side effects and long term ramifications of the meds ever since. I tried finding assets from the Alpha test- of the drug program; but all the ones I found out about- like Koresh, were dead."

"I finally found out three of the senior members of the initial trial: Bootstrap, Padre, and Byer. All the others are dead. Padre was on the Alphas for a year and then was taken off after he became very ill. Bootstrap was on them the whole time and was one of my guys too…"

"The nut job in the straight jacket and Hannibal mask? The guy at the briefing? Great. So, I'm going to end up as a cult leader, cannibal, or bent on world destruction." He laughed at the absurdity of it all.

"Bootstrap started working with me, but went off the deep end. He stopped taking the meds without my knowledge- he was paranoid. He went section eight and they locked him up."

"They?"

She clenched her jaw and grated, "I signed the papers, but I didn't do the take down. I haven't had access to him in years- I didn't know where they took him. Until a few weeks ago I figured Padre and Bootstrap were dead. So, that left-"

"-Byer…" he sighed.

"So, he was in a different program-"

"For the DOD…"

"Right. So I didn't know him personally before Langley and had no idea how to find him. I wanted to find him to check him for signs of mental and physical degradation. I gave him a physical and-"

"He consented to a physical?" As soon as the words came out he understood, "THAT'S why you slept with that creep? An experiment?! To test his physical aptitudes?" he said aghast.

She looked down, then to the side, then closed her eyes. She kicked him so swiftly under the table that he grabbed his shin in shock. "I did it for YOU, you jerk!" She glared at him, her eyes tiny slits, "It wasn't just 'a physical' either. I needed his DNA: saliva, skin, hair, semen… I got the works. Everything but blood."

"For me? I never asked you for that!" he accused. "You did what you did out of guilt…"

"Guilt?!" she scoffed as she looked at the ceiling. She mumbled, "Fighting… we're always fighting… count to ten Nicky…" She looked at him pleadingly, "Why can't you just say thank you… That's all I want in return."

He swallowed hard, "Thank you…"

"Your welcome," she said sternly and quickly switched back to her 'hushed female gossip voice' "So, he doesn't show signs of mental or physical degradation. Besides acting like a psychopath he seems fine…" She then relayed her debriefing with Byer.

"So, when you were…" he started.

"…gathering samples?"

He nodded, "Do you think he knew what you were doing?"

She hesitated, "Then I didn't think so, but now I do. He definitely knew I had other motives- who doesn't. I figure at this point he's pieced it together. I've wondered since then if he came back that night to kill me; when he walked in on us."

Bourne sat back and gave it some thought, she waited in silence as she appreciated his professional insight, "Maybe, but I highly doubt it. I think he came back hoping to catch you doing something… To get some kind of clue as to what you wanted. If he was going to kill you he would've tried to kill us both right then; my being there wouldn't have changed anything. He never could've recruited me without you; killing me then would've been a bonus. So, what did you learn?"

"Nothing." He rolled his eyes in exasperation. "I left that day for Australia and now I can't do anything," she held up her mangled hands. "So, since I met Marta I've been trying to warm up to her to see if she'll help us." He looked skeptical. "If I did the experiments, I would need to figure out what they were trying to do and know how things were suppose to be- she already knows that. She might be able to tell us in five minutes, whereas it might take me a year and then I'd just be guessing."

"But, Byer said he had the symptoms, but you said he was fine?"

"Right. So, either he: lied, found a cure, is cooking meds again, or found a way to postpone it. That's why he was so smug about knowing what you were going through- because he's fine."

"He's not fine. He's psychotic. We shouldn't rule out his 'cure' just causing another set of problems. We also shouldn't rule out that it was part of the degeneration."

"Point taken."

"My brother said you freaked when you found out we were twins…"

"Yeah, it confirmed the something is wrong with you; you're aging at an accelerated rate." He opened his mouth, "Don't ask Jason. I have no idea why, but I think it's only going to happen faster. If we are able to stop this it might only be due to your brother."

He recoiled slightly, "Michael? Why?"

"Because he is your identical twin! He has the same DNA as you; he is like a clone. God, there's a thought, could you imagine an army of yous?" she laughed. "Well his DNA was at least the same as before they started screwing with yours. He is a baseline to tell us exactly how you would have been today if you hadn't taken the meds."

"That's why you wanted his blood…"

"Right… Or, we maybe be able to re-infuse his DNA into whatever the hell you are now-"

"-and switch my DNA back?"

"Right. Or, a bone marrow transplant could put you body back in line- maybe."

"But, I'd be normal?"

Her eyes narrowed, "Maybe, but you'd be alive."

"You're right, I don't even know why I said that…"

"Because you're human…"

"Speaking of my brother I forgot to ask you, he said you got a phone call there and took off? Who was it?"

"OH MY GOD! I forgot to tell you!- Wait! What?! Michael was still there?! I told him to get out, to run!"

"We have the same thick head… The phone?"

She crinkled her nose in thought and said in poor Portuguese, [I think it was non-stick spray!]

He laughed and looked baffled for a minute, then he blurted, "Oh I think you mean-"

"SHHHHHH!" she scolded. [Yes, her… I know what I said…] not wanting to say Pam's name out loud.

[Why is that shocking?]

[You don't know?]

He looked confused, [Know what?]

[She's missing. She disappeared two month's ago. Everyone thinks she's dead; like Jimmy Hoffa dead.]

[You THINK she called?]

[Yeah. Your brother picked up the phone- she thought it was you because of the voice until he said you died years ago and you where . Then she said 'But, I know SHE is there. Put her on the phone. Now!' So, I said hello and a woman said, 'Get out! Run! He's coming…' I said JB and she said 'no, someone else…' and hung up.]

[…and you're sure it was her?]

[Pretty sure. She was talking fast, but I was certain it was her at the time. Since then I've wondered if it was someone trying to sound like her, or a voice emulator or something. You think HE has her?]

[No. She would've been in the car with him, otherwise she would've gotten away- right? If was she was able to get to a phone, she would've called for help too. I missed you by only a few hours and HE was already there when I got to the house…]

[WHAT?! You saw him!]

He hadn't told Byer on purpose and hadn't really had the time to tell her yet. [No. I didn't SEE him, but he was in the house,] he quickly filled her in. [So, he was looking for you in order to find Byer and Ray Wills…]

[…and because he wants to eat my liver with some fava beans and a nice Chianti. I don't get it why would he be in the house and not kill Michael- thinking it was you?]

[That's just it! I think at first that he believed Michael WAS me. He didn't want me; he wanted YOU.]

[Right. So, until he saw me why would he risk fighting you! I bet at some point he saw a picture of you both in the house and figured it out.]

[Right…]

There was a lasting silence as their conversation lost steam. Finally he opened his mouth almost imperceptibly, then closed it and looked down at his hands.

"What?"

He shook his head.

"Jason, you can tell me anything…"

[I wanted to ask you something… private?]

"Oh… well… umm, well I guess that's fair…?" she looked cagey and Bourne couldn't help but dwell on the 'Goens Hypothesis'.

[I guess it's more medical actually…]

"Oh! Yeah, that's fine…" she said, clearly relieved.

He pointed at her hands, "The pain in your hands, is it real or is it phantom pain?"

Every muscle in her body relaxed at once, "Thank you Jesus, something I know about!" she laughed. "No, it's very real. The only part of my left hand that doesn't hurt is where the fingers are missing. The whole thing is THROBBING so hard that I feel like one of those cartoon characters that gets hit with a mallet."

Several hours passed, some of the team petered out to the hotel, but most were still there. Some of them were well past the legal limit and Ashely had taken up the role of designated driver, shuttling people to the hotel as needed.

Nicky scoffed, "I can't believe you're pressuring me into doing that again Jason…"

"So- it's working? Come on… it won't be that painful I swear!"

"Yeah, well it was last time- it was an unmitigated disaster!"

"Oh, it wasn't that bad…" he offered reassuringly.

"Oh, you don't even remember," she practically shouted. "I'm the one that has to live with the shame and misery of that night… I mean it was PAINFUL!"

"That's not fair and you know it!" he said innocently.

"It's NOT my fault you can't remember… I suffered enough humiliation and anguish the first time around to last me a life time. There is no way in hell you are talking me into doing that again!"

"Come on… what's the worst that could happen?"

She scoffed, "Oh, I don't know, how about all of my neighbors listening through the walls at our utter ineptitude as we fumbled around in a vain attempt to perform in a manner our bodies clearly weren't designed to! I swear, I couldn't look my poor upstairs neighbor in the face for a month."

He pointed at something in a laminated book she was flipping through, to which she scoffed, "Do you even realize how long it is?! God, I think I'd rather impale myself on a sword…" to which he snorted as he slipped a beer and tried to hide his smirk behind the bottle.

"It wasn't that bad… Come on, just the tip this time- I promise?"

"What? Huh?" she closed her eyes, drunkenly trying to analyze the sentence for a different meaning, as her rum addled brain heard the chorus of giggles for the first time.

"I'll be gentle and take my time…" he smirked. "Just the tip…"

She leaned forward and whispered in French, [They're listening to us again…?]

He nodded.

[They think we are talking about sex?] she asked bashfully as she pursed her lips, which made him feel slightly guilty. He nodded and she cocked an eyebrow,[Anal sex…?] to which he blushed.

"Well," she said in a slightly higher register, "I promise to let you do that again- tonight… balls deep- all ten inches…" he leaned back and cocked an eyebrow in shock at her obvious fib. "As long as you let me use my strap on again…" His head reared back farther and the girls tittered as Nicky continued, "the BLACK one…" she said in an evil tone with a grin worthy of a super villainess.

Just as he was about to respond the karaoke DJ announced, "Alright, next up is Archie and Betty…"

Jason stood up and pulled her to her feet, taking the lyric book with him. "Betty?" she snapped as he drug her to her feet. "You made me Betty; I am totally a Veronica!" she barked over the applause as people saw him leading her with an iron grip to the little stage which was little more than a crate.

"I know you are, you just don't like to admit it…"

"Come on Jason- really?! Karaoke? I can't believe you even owned one of those infernal machines. That- back there: the sex thing, was totally Bourne circa 1999. It's nice to see he's still in there somewhere…"

As she climbed onto the platform she stared out the front window and just as Jason was contemplating what he was seeing she managed a single word, "…rain-" which was his first thought too. It first appeared that it was raining down a torrent a hundred yards away, but that it wasn't raining where they were yet. Kirill, Paz, and Ashley were twenty yards away and were about to get in a car when Paz grabbed her and swept her back over his arm like they were in a 1950's movie about to kiss, then he pulled his jacket over her face as a vampire would with his cloak. Kirill dove in to the open car door. He saw Khanh Nazari, who was standing out front smoking a cigar, go ridged then was suddenly in motion and screamed something he couldn't hear over the bar noise.

One could say that Bourne's Drill Sergeant, his Treadstone training, years of combat experience, or even his chemical enhancement were owed the credit for his reaction, but that wasn't true. The reality is that he reacted on something else, something primal that was ingrained in all forms of life: terror. In the millisecond it took for him to realize what he saw, he felt the need to flee. Luckily he still had his hands on Nicky's waist; he wrapped his arms around her completely, hurled them off the platform, and screamed the same thing he knew his old friend had screamed outside, "INCOMING!" as the shock wave from a massive explosion hit the building and it came apart like a house of cards.

He and Nicky were only halfway to the ground when it hit them and they went spinning through the air at what seemed like light speed. He knew Nicky screamed and felt something hit her and she went limp and he desperately fought to hold onto her despite the centrifugal force of their spin. He hit the rear wall at high speed and they fell to the ground and he landed on her hard. In a fraction of a second he heaved himself up her body using his torso to cover Nicky's head, neck, and body; then something heavy fell and hit his back, then his head, and darkness took him.