The Chimera Vector Read online

  ‘Once you have done that, you must electronically transmit the codes to me and destroy your copy immediately. Either way, from the moment you have it, the code will self-annihilate in twenty-four hours. So it’s important I have it immediately. I will be on standby near the facility, in Puerto Rico. Once you’ve transmitted it to me, you’re free to put a bullet through Denton’s head. If you like.’

  Cecilia stood abruptly. ‘We have the opportunity to rid the planet of Denton and psychopaths like him permanently. For the first time in hundreds, if not thousands, of years we can have a world without evil.’ She paced the room, chillingly focused. ‘A world without war. Can you imagine what that would feel like?’

  ‘No,’ Sophia said.

  ‘Precisely.’ Cecilia drew to a halt. ‘Because we’ve never had peace.’

  She turned to her desk. ‘Oh, before I forget.’ Her voice was soft again as she reached into a drawer and retrieved a plastic container, which she handed to Sophia. ‘This was yours, I believe.’

  Sophia opened it. Inside she found her cassette player and earphones, David Bowie tapes, her clock radio, hairbrush, toothbrush and folded-up purple pillowcase. Her hands trembled.

  ‘I brought it with me from Desecheo Island,’ Cecilia said.

  ‘I can’t believe the Fifth Column kept all this.’ Sophia picked up one of the tapes and smiled. ‘This was my favorite song: “Yassassin”. Only one letter away from assassin.’

  Cecilia smiled too. ‘Actually, it’s Turkish for wishing someone a long life. Yassassin literally means “may he or she live”.’

  Sophia placed the tape back in the container.

  ‘We can talk more about this tomorrow,’ Cecilia said. ‘If you’re still uncomfortable with the plan, then we can evaluate other options. That room you slept in is yours now. Once we have the chance, we’ll make it a bit more homely. I’ll have Ursula show you the way back.’

  ‘I can find my own way.’ Sophia stood, and paused in the doorway. ‘Thank you for trying to find me.’

  Cecilia nodded curtly. ‘We’ll speak again over breakfast.’

  ***

  Sophia returned to her new sleeping quarters with her container of childhood possessions to find her bag, still full, and a stack of four MRE field-ration packs by her bed. The top one was chicken fajita, which she considered the worst-tasting ration pack ever made.

  She was too exhausted to check her bag for all the possessions—and there wasn’t anything of value in there. Instead, she placed her canteen beside the ration packs and pulled the pencil torch from her bag. She removed its batteries and exchanged them with the old ones in her cassette player. She drank half the canteen to rehydrate, put her earphones in her ears and lay down on the bed.

  She hit play.

  Chapter Twenty

  ‘Good morning,’ Cecilia said. She was sitting on her chair again. It looked almost as though she hadn’t moved since the day before. She wet her lips. ‘Operatives. I’ve given it some thought, Sophia, and I think it’s far too dangerous.’

  ‘I can deprogram operatives in the field and bring them in. They can join the resistance.’

  ‘We don’t have that much time,’ Cecilia said.

  ‘I can engage an operative’s slave mode inside of ten minutes,’ Sophia said. ‘I’ve refined the entire deprogramming procedure to inside of a week. If I’m going to pull this off, I need operatives. The best.’

  Cecilia appeared to consider her proposal for a moment. ‘You’ll need a complete list of operatives and their abilities, both vector induced and natural,’ she said. ‘You can build your team based on what abilities you need. Do you have anyone in mind?’

  ‘Damien and Jay.’

  Cecilia shook her head. ‘Not a chance.’

  Sophia did her best to remain calm. ‘Why not?’

  ‘That is precisely what Denton will expect you to do.’

  ‘Fine. I want Grace,’ Sophia said. ‘Her ability will be useful.’

  Cecilia fell silent.

  ‘She’s not dead, is she?’

  Cecilia shook her head. ‘Oh no, she’s not dead. She’s a shocktrooper now.’

  ‘So?’ Sophia said. ‘I can still deprogram her, can’t I?’

  ‘You can. But I wouldn’t recommend it.’

  Sophia folded her arms. ‘Why?’

  ‘Deprogramming her would be unpredictable. They are the beta operatives. Her programming is just as experimental as her pseudogenes.’

  ‘What pseudogenes?’

  ‘The shocktroopers were the first successful recipients of the Axolotl Chimera vector. Before I encrypted it along with the anti-psychopath Chimera vector, anyway. Like the other shocktroopers, Grace has a more powerful version of the hyperequilibrioception and hyperproprioception vectors. Her balance, acceleration, coordination and speed are greatly enhanced. Add that to the Axolotl Chimera vector and her innate ability, and she’s near unstoppable.’

  ‘We need her.’

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The intruder had inch-long copper hair that Sophia instantly recognized. Partly swathed in shadow, she entered the bathroom and leveled a SIG Sauer P229 at Sophia.

  Sophia, sitting on the lip of the bathtub in near-darkness, had her own pistol in hand. ‘I was beginning to think you weren’t going to make it.’

  The intruder stiffened slightly. ‘I know you.’

  Sophia smiled. She had been waiting patiently for over two hours in this tiny Moroccan apartment. The intruder’s target, a wafer-thin male college student with a shaved head, lay bound and sedated in the bathtub beside her, wide electrical tape spread over his mouth.

  ‘Children three that nestle near, eager eye and willing ear, pleased a simple tale to hear,’ Sophia said.

  Something behind the intruder’s eyes shifted, clicked into place. ‘Access permitted,’ she said.

  ‘Nasira, I’d like you to empty the rounds from your magazine and place them in the basin,’ Sophia said. ‘And your pistol too.’

  Nasira released her magazine. The rounds clattered loudly as she dropped them in the sink. Sophia knew they were too large to slip down the pipe. Nasira rested her P229 on top of the rounds, then stared at nothing in particular.

  Sophia dipped into her bag with her free hand. She removed a notepad, the pages cluttered with her own handwriting. ‘Nasira. Confirm neopsyche designation Alcyone.’

  ‘Alcyone confirmed.’

  False personality confirmed. Good.

  ‘Execute Alcyone. Confirm parapsyche listing,’ Sophia said.

  ‘Alcyone loaded. Listing restricted,’ Nasira said.

  Sophia exhaled. ‘Confirm parapsyche designation Celaeno.’

  ‘Celaeno confirmed.’

  Now for the code architecture interface.

  ‘Execute Celaeno,’ Sophia said.

  ‘Celaeno loaded,’ Nasira said. ‘Request command.’

  ‘Compile subprogram Acis to interface with parapsyche Celaeno,’ Sophia said.

  ‘Compilation successful.’ Nasira remained perfectly still. ‘Acis loaded. Request command.’

  ‘Activate debugging mode,’ Sophia said. ‘List all parapsyches and their functions.’

  ‘Parapsyche Celaeno; function: code architecture interface,’ Nasira said. ‘Parapsyche Ares; function: assassination. Parapsyche Auto-Thanatos; function: self-destruction. Parapsyche Lycaon; function: slave mode. Parapsyche Orthrus; function: programming defense. Parapsyche Oranos; function: parapsyche partition management—’

  ‘Halt,’ Sophia said. ‘Execute parapsyche designation Oranos.’

  ‘Oranos loaded. Request command.’

  ‘Confirm access restrictions,’ Sophia said.

  ‘Command is non-specific. Please rephrase.’

  Sophia chewed her lip. ‘Confirm erasure command access restrictions.’

  ‘Erasure commands unrestricted,’ Nasira said.

  ‘Long had paled the sunny sky,’ Sophia said.

  ‘Command not recognized.’

/>   She’d just tripped Orthrus, the programming defense parapsyche. Not good.

  ‘Execute parapsyche Celaeno,’ Sophia said. Back to the code architecture.

  ‘Celaeno loaded. Request command,’ Nasira said.

  ‘Search for Orthrus commands. List results.’

  ‘Search complete,’ Nasira said. ‘Three entries. Entry one: deactivate Orthrus: Summer. Entry two: activate Orthrus: Autumn. Entry three: calibrate Orthrus: Winter.’

  The deactivate function was a trick, Sophia knew. All of the deactivate functions were. It wasn’t going to be that easy.

  ‘Execute parapsyche designation Oranos.’

  ‘Oranos loaded.’ Nasira’s gaze remained on the wall behind Sophia. ‘Request command.’

  The student in the bathtub stirred. Sophia ignored him. This had better work.

  ‘Autumn frosts have slain July,’ she said.

  July was the code for calibrating parapsyche Ares. If this worked, she’d just commanded one part of Nasira’s programming to attack another part.

  Nasira started shaking. Her cocoa skin prickled with goose bumps. She looked like she was about to cry.

  Sophia wet her lips. She checked the bound college student. His eyes were wide and he was watching her intently. She raised a finger to her lips.

  ‘Parapsyche Ares erased . . .’ Nasira’s lips trembled. ‘It hurts.’ She brought her hands to her ears and shut her eyes. Dropping to her knees, she twisted and writhed. ‘Make it stop,’ she said. ‘Make it stop!’

  Sophia leaned forward. Her notepad slipped onto the tiles. ‘Echo status.’

  Nasira stopped moving. She was hunkered over, eerily still, cloaked in shadow.

  The student moaned through the electrical tape.

  Sophia stood over Nasira, screamed, ‘Echo status!’

  Nasira looked up. Her gaze bore right through Sophia. ‘Parapsyche Celaeno active. Awaiting command.’

  Sophia retreated to the edge of the bathtub. The student was wriggling about, with little effect.

  ‘Long had paled that sunny sky,’ Sophia said. ‘Echoes fade and memories die.’

  ‘All parapsyche backups erased,’ Nasira said.

  The parapsyches themselves were still there, Sophia knew, but she’d get to those later, when time was on her side. ‘Execute parapsyche designation Lycaon.’

  ‘Lycaon loaded,’ Nasira said. ‘Slave mode enabled.’

  Sophia turned to the student and ripped off the tape. He screamed in pain, the skin around his lips flushed red. Sophia leaned over him and he sank further down into the bathtub, breathless.

  ‘Whatever you did to attract the attention of the Fifth Column,’ she whispered. ‘Stop.’

  ***

  Nasira sat alone in one of the Akhana’s holding cells, cross-legged on the floor, head down. Sophia watched her carefully. She looked like she was meditating.

  ‘Nasira,’ she said. ‘Terminate parapsyche designation Lycaon.’

  ‘Terminated,’ Nasira said.

  ‘Shut down neopsyche designation Alcyone,’ Sophia said.

  ‘Parameter missing.’ Nasira looked up through the bars, at Sophia’s legs. ‘Command unsuccessful.’

  ‘Shut down neopsyche designation Alcyone; soft reset.’

  For a moment, Nasira remained sitting, then pulled back. She scrambled to her feet. ‘What are you motherfuckers doing to me?’

  ‘Welcome back,’ Sophia said. ‘I’ve erased your programming backups and your assassination program. For our safety. You’re now living through your real personality. And with no backups to restore from, it’ll stay that way long enough for me to deprogram you completely.’

  ‘What? What do you want from me, bitch?’ Nasira’s voice punched through the cell block.

  ‘Nothing,’ Sophia said.

  Nasira opened her mouth, but didn’t seem to have a response for that. ‘Where am I?’

  ‘You’re being held in the cell block of an Akhana base. I’m in the process of deprogramming you.’

  Nasira launched towards Sophia, and was stopped by the metal bars. She glared at Sophia. ‘Akhana, the terrorist organization? Don’t you lay a finger on me, you psycho!’ she yelled.

  Nasira’s aggression was normal. Sophia had been there herself once.

  ‘Oh, don’t worry,’ she said. ‘I won’t need to lay a finger on you.’

  ‘I know all about you.’ Nasira tried to smile. ‘Got half your team killed. Tried to manipulate Damien and Jay into defecting, nearly got them killed. Abducted by a mentally disturbed clinical psychiatrist. A bit of brainwashing; Stockholm syndrome. You probably fucked the Soviet son of a bitch. I’m just glad someone wasted him before it was too late.’

  ‘You were sent on an operation. To eliminate a terrorist in Morocco.’

  Nasira blinked. ‘Suicide bomber. An entire cell of them. They were planning to hit a mosque. You brought me all the way here—’ she looked around ‘—to Buttfuck Land, to ask me this shit?’

  ‘How would you feel, Nasira, if the answer you gave me was not real?’

  Nasira snorted. ‘Don’t talk to me about reality.’

  ‘But what if it isn’t real?’ Sophia said. ‘What if your entire life hinges on the fact that you’ve been lied to? About yourself and about everything around you. That you subscribe to beliefs that are completely false.’

  Nasira started laughing. ‘Are you trying to brainwash me? Or you just have some problem with my beliefs?’

  ‘I do when your enemy is fictitious. A myth thought up by the Fifth Column marketing department. That suicide bomber you were sent to assassinate was a peaceful college student who knew a little too much.’

  Nasira smiled. ‘I’d say you need some help, because you are one motherfucker who has seriously lost touch with reality.’

  ‘What if it isn’t me who’s lost touch with reality, but you?’

  Sophia brandished her pistol, then placed it in front of the bars, within Nasira’s reach. She stepped back and smiled. ‘Or, more to the point, you were never in touch with reality to begin with?’

  Nasira’s lips curled. ‘I don’t think you know the meaning of reality.’

  ‘World War Two: a spontaneous rise of fascism, with the good guys on one side and the bad guys on the other?’ Sophia said. ‘Hardly. Africa: an entire continent naturally stuck in poverty? I don’t think so. The war on terror: Muslims attack the west; the west responds to defend and spread freedom and democracy? Yeah, right. The Miami Seven, the Fort Dix Six, the Newburgh Four, the Underwear Bomber, the Portland Car Bomber—the Fifth Column set them up and knocked them down. Dozens of straw men created to convince everyone the war on terror is real.’

  ‘You don’t think the war is real?’ Nasira approached her slowly. ‘What drugs are you on?’

  ‘It’s very real,’ Sophia said. ‘But the war you see is a performance. You’re winning that war, but you’re losing the real one. The real war is the war for your mind. The real war is waged by the Fifth Column against humanity.’

  ‘You’re insane.’ Nasira paced near the pistol, but didn’t try to pick it up. ‘I think you’ve been reading from the fiction shelf for too long.’

  ‘The difference between us is that I know what fiction is.’ Sophia turned to leave. She heard the slide of a pistol snap back. ‘Or at least I do now.’

  ‘Let me out,’ Nasira said, pistol in hand. ‘Or they’ll come looking for me. You do not want that shit coming down on you.’

  ‘The exquisite corpse will drink finest wine,’ Sophia said.

  In one fluid movement, Nasira turned the pistol on herself. She squeezed the trigger.

  ***

  ‘Fill the glasses with treacle and ink,’ Sophia said.

  Nasira blinked, pried the barrel from her temple. ‘How the fuck did you do that?’

  ‘I can do that because I left your Auto-Thanatos parapsyche intact.’

  ‘Talk English.’

  Sophia raised her eyebrow, conscious of the scar that divi
ded it. ‘Auto-Thanatos is self-mutilation and self-destruction.’ She leaned forward. ‘I’m safe from you. But you, not so much.’

  Nasira weighed the pistol with one hand. She gave Sophia a wry grin and discarded it. ‘It felt a bit light. So, let me get this straight. You’re saying I’m going around killing innocent people, thinking they’re terrorists. And this whole war on terror thing—what is that meant to be, a joke? I’m sorry, but that’s too stupid to take seriously.’

  ‘As long as we have a false enemy,’ Sophia said, ‘we’ll never discover the real one.’

  ‘Whatever you say.’ Nasira kicked the pistol through the metal bars, back to Sophia’s feet. ‘If you’re here to recruit me as part of your anarchist happy-clappy cult then think again.’ She folded her arms. ‘I’d rather shoot myself than wear a tinfoil hat and call you Morpheus. Or believe even for one goddamn minute that we’d even think of killing innocent people.’

  Sophia shook her head. ‘It’s not that you can’t accept it. You’ve made up your mind in advance that such a possibility is ridiculous and no amount of evidence will convince you otherwise. So you dismiss everything before you see it.’

  Sophia picked up the pistol and pressed the decocking lever. ‘Actually, you know what? It’s not that you can’t accept the possibility that you have it all wrong; you’re unwilling to.

  Nasira smiled. ‘And why would I be unwilling? Because it’s bat-shit crazy?’

  ‘Because it falls too far outside of what you’ve been programmed to believe.’ From her pocket, Sophia produced a worn first-generation iPod. She slid it across the tiles to Nasira. ‘Even if it’s staring you right in the face.’

  ‘What’s this? Your propaganda video?’

  ‘And you’re the star act,’ Sophia said.