Chapter 8
I left a message with Julie telling her that I would be out of pocket for a bit, couldn’t say where I was going, how long I’d be gone, but not to worry, I’d explain later, and that I’d find a ride home. It says a lot about our relationship that that wasn’t a particularly strange call by our standards.
The MCB Blackhawk was downright plush compared to my usual ride. Okay, it was still pretty Spartan, but I didn’t see anything wrapped in duct tape. Agent Franks sat across from me. Of course, he didn’t feel like talking, and he just sat there with an F2000 rifle resting on his lap. The pilot and copilot were the only other people on board. Franks had given them a few instructions and we’d taken off, heading east. I couldn’t tell what direction we’d gone from there because it was dark and the rare lights out the windows didn’t reveal any landmarks.
My few attempts at conversation had ended in some variation of “Classified” or a blank stare. I swear that sometimes he was like this just to piss me off. Franks acted like he had an exact number of words allotted to him every day, and that he’d be heavily penalized if he went over his limit. Sadly, he saved most of his complete sentences for threatening people, and managed to accomplish most of his communicating through scowling, blinking, and radiating malice.
I knew his secret. The thing that we all knew as Agent Franks had been the inspiration for the fictional Frankenstein’s monster, and had been around for a very long time. His creator, the alchemist Konrad Dippel, had died in the seventeen-hundreds, so Franks had to have been first stitched together sometime before that. His very existence piqued my curiosity, but it was all for naught.
“So, Franks. When did you come to America?”
“Classified.”
“You weren’t…” I tried to think of the right word. “Born here. Why’d you immigrate?”
He stared at me for a second. “Classified.”
Sweet. I had gotten both possible responses to a single question. I was making real headway here. After that achievement I decided to take a nap.
A change in air pressure woke me up. Franks didn’t appear to have moved an inch, but my watch told me an hour had passed.
“ETA, five minutes,” Franks stated. “When was your last psychic episode?”
It took my sleep-addled brain a moment to process that. “What?”
“When was your last psychic episode?” he repeated.
He wasn’t supposed to know about that. Franks had been my bodyguard during the incident with the Condition and my last exposure to the Old Ones, but I’d done my best to keep it from him, though he’d certainly been around for enough to know that I wasn’t ordinary. “No. I’m not—” but he just kept staring at me with those remorseless, merciless, borrowed eyeballs of his. “Fuck you, Franks. Classified.”
He tilted his head to the side, probably deciding how to kill me without messing up his nice helicopter. “If I cared, I would’ve did something last year.”
He had me there. Myers had been eyewitness to me being bitten by a zombie and not dying. If the MCB gave a crap, they had more than enough to lock me up for study and evaluation. Besides, Franks didn’t seem too particular about that sort of thing. He only cared if oddities like me were useful for completing his assignments. But damn it, I didn’t want to tell him anything. “Fine. But you answer some of my questions, I’ll answer some of yours.” That wasn’t very likely. I was safe.
Franks stared at me. Back to square one.
I looked out the window. There were more lights below us, big orange security lights in a gigantic grid pattern. There were lots of fences and strange, squat white buildings. None of it was familiar.
Franks cleared his throat. I turned back to him. “I came for the war.”
Franks was going to talk? No way. He wasn’t going to get off that easy. “Which war?”
“The first one.”
I thought about that for a second. “America’s first war or…”
“I was a Hessian.”
It was so out of left field it took my brain a moment to run back through its trivia vaults. “A Hessian? Like, the Germans that fought in the Revolutionary War…Whoa…Man, that’s crazy. No way.” Franks’ expression said Yes. Way. Logically, I knew that Franks was much older than that, but that certainly put things in perspective. “Wait. The Hessians worked for the British. You switched sides? Why?”
“Benjamin Franklin asked nice.”
“Ben Franklin! Really? That’s amazing. You knew the guy that invented electricity!”
Franks raised an eyebrow. You can’t invent electricity.
“You know what I mean. I can’t believe you met Ben Franklin.” I waited for him to continue, but he just went back to glowering at me. That meant it was my turn. Assuming he was telling the truth, and of the many horrific things that Franks was, I’d never taken him for a liar, that was an astounding amount of information. No doubt if I ever shared it with anyone he’d break me in half. I had no choice but to talk.
“Okay then…My last incident was right after the Arbmunep battle.” I didn’t think I needed to disclose that the last experience was reading his superior’s mind and discovering that Agent Myers had once been involved in some horrific, illegal, and amoral things during his contractor days. Specifically, he had been complicit with Ray Shackleford IV in allowing Martin Hood to animate the dead in order to collect PUFF on them. It was embarrassing for Myers, not that I cared, but more embarrassing for MHI and the Shackleford family name, and that I did care about. “Nothing since then.”
“Nature of the ability?”
“It’s happened half a dozen times, tops. Began with Lord Machado, aggravated by exposure to their artifact…which I hope you bastards have locked up nice and safe somewhere.”
He tilted his head the other direction.
“Memories. I can view memories.” Franks’ eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Not yours. Ever. Trust me. I don’t want to see what’s in there. It’s only happened with physical contact. It seems like they have to be thinking about that particular memory, and I have to really want to know.” There was a lot more to it than that, like my experience inside the mind of Carlos Alhambra or when I tried to help Earl against the demon Hood had put into his head. But screw Franks. He’d known Ben Franklin and wouldn’t talk about it. If he got to have such awesome secrets, so did I. “That’s pretty much it.”
“Hmmm…”
Franks thought about it for a long time, so long in fact, that I’d thought he was done. I went back to looking out the window. Judging by the vehicles below, we were over some sort of sparsely populated area of a military base, with only a few random, mysterious buildings here and there, with lots of wide open desert between them. Milo had mentioned that the attack site had been west of the vast Dugway Proving Grounds, so I guessed that was where we were now.
“When we get there, tell me if you feel anything.”
“What is there specifically?”
“We’re not sure.” Shockingly enough, Franks didn’t elaborate. Then we landed in the middle of a field.
After flying over miles of government facilities, I would’ve expected to have arrived at something. But there was nothing but sagebrush and snow outside. A single yellow pickup truck was stopped nearby with the headlights on.
The Blackhawk’s door slid open, and standing there was a vaguely person-shaped thing in a gigantic yellow rubber chemical suit. I could barely see the shape of a face behind the glare of the plastic face shield. Considering Milo had told me that this was where the Army buried all of their chemical and biological weapons, meeting somebody wearing a big scary apocalypse suit wakes you right up.
He, she, it—damned if I could tell—handed a big rubber bag to Franks. “Agent Franks? We were told to expect you. Put these on.” It was a man, and his voice came through a speaker on the bottom of his helmet.
Franks unzipped the bag, revealing more chemical suits. “Why do we need these?” I asked nervously.
“Who is this?” the stranger asked.
“Consultant,” Franks answered.
“He hasn’t signed a waiver. If he dies it isn’t my problem. He’ll need to sign a waiver.”
“He was never here,” Franks said.
“Neither were the other multitudes traipsing through my facility all day. Same rules apply. If he leaves your side, my men will shoot him.”
“Understood.”
The helmet turned to me. I could mostly only see my own reflection. “Stay close to the agent or you will be shot.”
“Got that the first time. So, why do I need the suit?”
“Nerve gas. If you stray off the path, you will be shot.”
The night suddenly seemed extra chilly. “Nerve gas?”
“Nerve gas. If you cross the fence—”
“Yeah, yeah, I got it, cross the fence, get shot.”
“No. If you cross the fence, the nasty shit that’s buried over there will burn right through your respirator and you’ll be having a seizure in ten seconds and dead in under a minute. My men won’t have to shoot you, but you’ll want them to. Get your suits on and meet me at the truck.” The rubberized man waddled away.
What have I gotten myself into?
Franks tossed me the helmet. “Hope that fits.”
“Up yours, Franks. I hope yours doesn’t.”
Franks nodded. “That would be unfortunate. Nerve gas tickles.”