Vortex Page 4

  “Drop your weapon!” she said, her voice shaking a little.

  “I could do that,” the man behind me answered, his voice alone causing my heart to race. It was Thomas, and now all I could think about was getting to the top of that mountain and tossing him from it. “Or I could just … vanish with your friend here. And I think you know what I mean.”

  Oh, God … it really is them. I held my breath, trying to keep it steady. “Let her go.”

  “Sorry. Can’t do that,” the girl who looked like Rena said.

  Isn’t she dead, too?

  And I took notice of the fact that none of the others had drawn weapons … which meant they might not have any. I counted to three in my head, planning my movements carefully, then I used my heel to kick Thomas and cause his knee to buckle. At the same time, I twisted his wrist so the gun pointed upward. As expected, a shot fired into the sky. Two seconds later I had Thomas on his back, my foot at his throat, cutting off the air supply to his lungs.

  “Go!” I said to Kendrick, not even looking up. Her feet shuffled a bit as she hesitated, but then she took off in a run. She only made it about thirty feet before collapsing onto the grass, screaming and clutching the sides of her head.

  I couldn’t help her without taking out everyone around me, including the enemy under my foot.

  The man’s features swam in front of me until I could finally focus on them. It was definitely him … Thomas. He looked a little different, but nearly the same. Maybe he was older now? Either way, my blood boiled and my pulse pounded into my finger as it rested on the trigger of the gun. “I never should have let you go the first time.”

  Memories flicked at high speed … Thomas’s impassive face as he raised Holly over the ledge of the building. Her scream pierced through my ears all over again and it was all I could hear other than the pounding of blood in my veins. I can’t let him go again.

  He needs to die.

  “Jackson!”

  The deafening scream inside my head turned down a few decibels, along with the growing fury in my fingertips.

  “Stop him!” someone shouted.

  “Jackson…” A familiar voice.

  The tension flooding through my hand loosened a little. “Dad?”

  I shook my head, trying to focus on the person who had just spoken to me. He sounded like Dad, but didn’t look like him. He moved toward me, placing a hand over the gun I now held loosely. He whispered in my ear, “It’s just a test … memory gas. What you’re seeing is altered.”

  “But…” I stuttered. “I thought…”

  Strong hands gripped my shoulder, turning me around. “Let’s go. The test isn’t over yet. In fact, since Dad had to ruin the illusion, I think your final exam is going to be much, much more difficult.”

  Chief Marshall. I recognized his voice, but he looked different. Like someone else. A bag was placed over my head and my arms were tied with rope behind my back. This time I didn’t resist, still stunned from the realization that I hadn’t just been in the middle of an EOT attack. And I knew the final test was coming up, since we had all nearly reached the end of our training, but I didn’t think it would be today, especially after being dropped from a helicopter with only a mountainside to land on. Wasn’t that enough drama for one day?

  The next phase of the test involved a long walk to an unknown underground location. Headquarters were underground, I was used to that. But this place had metal floors that clanked and an almost hospital-like smell.

  Someone pressed me into a large chair and some kind of cuffs encircled my arms, covering them from my wrists all the way to my elbows. The cuffs squeezed against my skin.

  The bag was finally yanked from my head and I saw Kendrick beside me, bound by her arms to an identical chair. Her knees were pulled to her chest, face pressed into them as she shook uncontrollably. Her shoulders wiggled back and forth as she tried to free her arms.

  “Just … please … just let me see them,” she said with a shaky voice.

  See who? Is she hallucinating fake people, too?

  Chief Marshall strode in front of us, pacing back and forth. “Agent Meyer,” he called to Dad. “Question her while she’s still like this … since the other subject’s data has been invalidated.”

  He turned to glare at me and then stormed out of the tiny room. On the wall just in front of us a digital clock hung, and when I glanced sideways I realized there were at least eight identical chairs and a clock or timer in front of each. The red numbers on mine flashed and eventually stayed, reading 85.

  Kendrick’s numbers were jumping all over the place … 120 … 152 … 165.

  Dad glanced at her clock and his forehead wrinkled. He crouched down beside her and whispered, “Relax, Lily … you’re okay.”

  “No … no, I’m not!” She shook her head back and forth. “Just let me go and I’ll come right back, I swear.”

  “Kendrick,” he said more forcefully. “Can you smell the metal? Think about it … you know what this is.”

  She stiffened and then raised her head slightly, wiping the tears on the shoulder of her sweatshirt. I wasn’t sure what to think. I’d never seen any other agent break down like this.

  The door opened again and Dad stood up and paced the front of the room, like Marshall had moments ago. “Tell me where you are, Agent Kendrick,” he barked.

  I barely listened to his questioning because I was distracted watching the other trainees being marched in and strapped down just like us. Stewart ended up right beside me.

  “How’s it going, Junior?” she whispered to me. “Didn’t wet your pants, did you?”

  Mason, Stewart’s official partner, was on her other side. He didn’t look as calm and malicious as Stewart right now, but he didn’t seem as freaked out as Kendrick had been seconds ago. Or me, fifteen minutes ago.

  “So, tell me what you saw,” Stewart whispered loudly to me. “Your credit cards stolen?”

  I squeezed my fists together and watched the number 85 on my clock change to 90, then 95.

  “As you may have noticed,” Chief Marshall said, walking slowly from the door to the center of the room, “those cuffs around your arms keep a constant measure of each of your pulse rates. In about twenty seconds, a number is going to flash below your current heart rate. That is the average resting heart rate Dr. Melvin has recorded during physical assessments.”

  I watched my clock, counting down until the number 63 flashed below my 90. Kendrick’s target number was 78 and Stewart had the second lowest at 67.

  “You have exactly one minute to lower that number to no more than ten beats per minute above your individual resting heart rate. Should you fail to do this, a gradual progression of physical punishment in the form of electric shock and heat will be administered through those armbands,” Marshall continued with uninterested ease, as though giving a guided tour of a boring landmark.

  I closed my eyes and took in slow deep breaths, feeling rather than watching my pulse slow. When I opened my eyes again thirty seconds later, my number had dropped to 78.

  Stewart stuck her feet out in front of her, crossing her legs and stretching. Her pulse held steady at 69. This was why she specialized in both Covert Operations and Foreign Affairs. The girl was comfortable and relaxed in anyone’s skin, pretending to be anyone or anything.

  Twenty seconds later, my number had dropped to 71. Chief Marshall turned his eyes on me, narrowing them to slits. “Agent Meyer … can you tell me what prevented you and Agent Kendrick from reaching headquarters in the allotted mission time?”

  “We were attacked, sir,” I said immediately.

  “By whom?” Marshall asked, resting his hands on my chair and getting right in my face.

  71 … 72 … 73 …

  “I’m not … I don’t know,” I said, scrambling to remember which agents, besides Dad, had actually been present. I never got a good look at their real faces after the delusional fog dissolved.

  “Think hard, Agent Meyer.”

&
nbsp; 74 … 75 … heat flowed through my arms, not scalding temperatures, but I knew it would get worse. Kendrick gasped beside me, but when I glanced her way, she bit down on her lower lip and smoothed her expression, faking calm.

  Good. She’s learning.

  Her pulse, however, raced, fluctuating from 105 all the way to 125.

  “If Agent Meyer Senior hadn’t stopped you, Agent Freeman might not be alive right now,” Marshall said. “How do feel about that? How do you feel about having your environment, your mind, altered in such a drastic, consequential way?”

  He’s exaggerating. I wouldn’t have killed Freeman.

  My legs were free, so I had to fight the urge to kick him in the stomach. Seriously? How did he think I felt about it? Yeah, it was a real blast. Dad’s face tightened, probably sensing my anger, and he shook his head ever so slightly at me.

  “It wasn’t an experience I’d like to have again,” I answered finally, biting down the words I really wanted to say.

  76 … 77 … 78.

  Beside me, sweat trickled down Kendrick’s face and she closed her eyes, letting out short rapid breaths.

  Pain shot through my arms, traveling across my entire body. I gritted my teeth, trying not to make any movement to prove my discomfort. A yelp from one of the agents came from several seats away.

  “Are you going to tell us what that gas was?” Mason asked from two seats over. There was a definite strain in his voice and I could see from his own clock that he was struggling just as badly as Kendrick to keep calm. They had definitely taken the mind games to a whole new level today.

  “Yes,” Marshall boomed, tearing his direct attention away from me. “The substance each of you inhaled today contained a chemical that we have yet to fully identify.”

  That was how Dad was able to lure Kendrick out of her delusion … she was specializing in advanced bio. Dr. Melvin probably had her studying the weird chemical.

  “Is this the final test?” someone shouted from the last seat to my right. “Is it standard?”

  “No, it’s not, Agent Miller. In fact, our division needed data to use as a beginning point in our research. The gas is something that exists many, many years from now and its purpose is to alter an environment or situation using an individual’s own stored memories. That is the only information Dr. Melvin and I received, and of course we were curious to see how memories were selected and the effect it had on each individual. Can anyone think of a reason this substance could be useful to a government agency?”

  “Crime scene investigation,” Agent Parker said from Kendrick’s other side.

  Just hearing about this futuristic weapon had caused my pulse to race again … 82 … 83 … 85, and the heat reached a nearly unbearable level. Kendrick’s face had gone completely white. Her numbers climbed to well over 140 and the wrinkle in her forehead told me she was most likely getting electrical shock as well.

  “Yes,” Marshall said. “But something even more threatening.”

  “Assassins,” Stewart said. Her number flickered to 70 for a split second and then quickly fell to 68.

  “Very good, Agent Stewart.” Marshall paced for several seconds, causing everyone to grow more nervous. He stared right at me. “None of us know how this substance will be used or when exactly, but this is part of our future, that much is guaranteed. Weapons such as these are not ethical or risk-controlled methods of preserving humanity, and as soon as Tempest finds out who the person is behind this invention, the individual will be stopped. That’s a risk and an unfortunate loss we must be willing to take.”

  But, of course, they had no ethical hang-ups about testing it out on unsuspecting trainees.

  And I still couldn’t believe a gas could work that way … that something chemical could just unleash memories I had tried so desperately to hide.

  A strange thought occurred to me at probably the worst possible time. If the chemicals made me think Agent Freeman was Thomas and my reaction was deadly, what would I have done if one of them had looked like Holly?

  I shook the thought from my head and focused on Agent Freeman, who had just entered the room and stood next to Marshall. “Now that we have the experimental weapon out of the way and all of you are in a compromised position, we figured this might be a good time to test your knowledge.”

  Everyone’s pulse sped, including mine.

  “Agent Kendrick,” Freeman said right away to my partner. “If you and another one of your teammates here were trapped in a confined space, having no means of communication and no idea when you’d be rescued, which teammate would you prefer to be held with?”

  The way he asked this, polite and casual, using the word “prefer” as if we were playing some cheesy board game, made it sound like there wasn’t a real right or wrong answer. Which made me nervous for Kendrick, but when I glanced at her again, some color had already flooded back into her cheeks and her pulse slowed to 91.

  “What are the dimensions of the space?” she asked.

  “You’re assuming you can see?” another agent from several seats away said.

  “I can measure without seeing,” Kendrick responded, still keeping her eyes on Freeman.

  He tossed some random numbers at her and she countered with yet another question: “What is the estimated temperature of the space?”

  Freeman lifted one eyebrow, sweeping his eyes over her clock, which now held steady at 79. “Eighty-nine degrees.”

  “Without knowing any potential methods of escape and the skills required to attempt those methods, I’d choose Agent Sterling.” Kendrick’s response came without hesitation, showing she hadn’t been stalling. She really needed that information to form her answer.

  “Why is that?” Freeman asked.

  “With that tight of an area and the normal temperature already being on the warm side, Mason has the lowest body fat percentage and his entire body mass is nearly the smallest of the group, therefore he’d use the least amount of energy.”

  “Nearly the smallest,” Stewart pointed out before Freeman could respond. Stewart herself was actually the lightest and smallest of all the trainees, maybe of all the Tempest agents.

  Freeman turned his eyes to Stewart and back to Kendrick, who looked unbelievably calm compared to ten minutes earlier. “She has a point…”

  “Yes,” Kendrick said, keeping her voice even. “But I had to consider psychological compatibility. Stewart’s more likely to create conflict, which would lead to delayed solutions.”

  “But Agent Stewart tests higher in pressure situations than nearly anyone in the division, as she’s proven today. Agent Sterling, however, seemed to struggle the most,” Freeman pointed out. “Wouldn’t you rather be confined with the agent most likely not to panic?”

  Yes, Stewart definitely had earned that role in a very scary and intimidating way, but in the past few weeks I’d managed to challenge her on more than one occasion. Sometimes it was easier to let your fears and emotions turn numb and allow your mind to take over and just … go through the motions. Apparently the CIA likes those methods very much and rewards them with high test scores.

  “Fine,” Kendrick said, a trace of annoyance and reluctance leaking into her voice. “I wouldn’t pick Stewart because she knows she’ll handle it better than I would and it’s possible she’d kill me just to have enough oxygen to plan her escape and complete whatever mission had gotten us trapped in the first place. And even though I’d like to put the division first, I’m pretty sure my own self-preservation would kick in and I’d prefer not to be killed for the greater good.”

  I was slightly shocked by Kendrick’s response, but in an almost humorous way. Did she really think Stewart would kill her just to save the world or whatever? Stewart completely infuriated me ninety-nine percent of the time, but I didn’t think she’d ever actually kill me.

  “Honesty is always appreciated,” Freeman said, then his gaze flitted over me, pausing for a split second before moving to Stewart. “Agent Stewart, who would you c
hoose?”

  I waited for her comment on Kendrick’s answer, but she didn’t even look like she cared. “I’d also choose Mason, for pretty much the same reasons.”

  Freeman continued to ask the same question of the entire group and everyone chose Mason. It was obvious we were being judged on more than our answer, and a couple other agents tried to come up with intelligent questions like Kendrick had, but it was clear the information wasn’t important enough to really affect their choice.

  “I find it very interesting that none of you chose Agent Stewart—”

  “Actually, you didn’t ask me,” I said, interrupting him. “I’d choose Stewart.”

  “Why?” Freeman said, immediately shifting his focus.

  “Like you said, she’s the best under pressure and the smallest and lightest. And she’s also … also…”

  “What?” Freeman prompted.

  I sat up straighter and made sure my voice would sound firm and direct. “She’s the least likely to form an emotional attachment.” Because we don’t like each other very much.

  “Interesting,” Freeman said, but didn’t elaborate further. “Agent Kendrick, your partner is ranked second on his ability to work under pressure and has the fourth-smallest body mass of the group … Sterling is just a notch below him. Why not choose Agent Meyer? In fact, why didn’t any of you choose Agent Meyer?”

  Silence. Dead silence. Several pulses sped up, but mine held steady.

  I didn’t care that no one had picked me. I liked it better that way, and honestly, if I had to choose, I’d have picked to be trapped alone.

  Freeman’s eyes swept over the group, and when no one spoke up, he eventually ended the silence. “Fine … I’d like for all of you to put your answer in writing by the end of the day. We’re done for now, but each of you will return to these lovely chairs and it will be much more threatening next time. Tomorrow, be ready for multiple foreign language exams.”

  The cuffs loosened and released all of our arms at once. There was a nervous chatter that sprang up among the group as everyone filed out the door. Chief Marshall returned and held me and Kendrick back from the others. “Stay,” he commanded.