Episode LXII

“It doesn’t make sense, none of it! The casts, the fake smoke, the vial, and the girl—it doesn’t make sense.” Straining to see in the fog, Luke saw nothing, and was surprised to hear the loud pop of pistol fire. “Bullets!” The sound sent him back several years, bringing to mind the sound of sirens, shouts, and a gun...

Two more shots shook him awake and made him reach for his ears as the sound reverberated in the close quarters of the hall. Luke tried to shift his weight about trying to get a better view of the fighting, but with his casts he found it extremely difficult to rotate his legs. Man, I wonder how the Tin Man did it—forget a heart, I would have been content with some oil and a way to pick myself up! Luke chuckled at the thought of the Tin Man slipping on a banana peel and falling on his back, unable to pick himself up because of his sheer bulkiness.

“Luke! C’mon, let’s go!” Sarah’s commanding presence brought him back to his present situation, along with that recently familiar sense of confusion. Sarah lifted him from the ground rather skillfully, conjuring a funny little picture of Dorothy trying to raise the Tin Man from his precarious situation. “Give me your hand!” Not waiting for him to respond, she jerked his arm around her shoulder and started walking, half-carrying, half-pushing Luke down the hall. Something was different with the way she was acting now—it seemed her patience was gone, replaced with a sense of determination that would have matched Evel Knievel before trying to jump the Grand Canyon.

“Concentrate! You’re not lame, so stop acting like it!”

“I can’t help it; we’re going too fast!”

“No, we’re going too slow, now pick it up!”

Luke struggled with his bulky feet, certain that they had been replaced with concrete blocks. “What’s going on? I heard gunfire!”

“Someone,” Sarah paused for a moment, letting the alarms fill the silence for her, “someone went too far.”

Too far? What’s that supposed to mean?? Before he had a chance to ask, Luke’s right leg kicked into something, sending him flying forward, this time going unaided by Sarah as his arm flew from around her neck. As he braced for impact, Luke noticed that the ground rushing toward him was not the metallic blue of the hallway, but green.

Thud. The impact hurt, but not as badly as Luke had expected. Clinging to the ground, he mentally took inventory of all his teeth, making sure his jarring landing hadn’t made any permanent impressions. “Someone should put tape on those steps to...” Luke paused as he felt the ground beneath him give unusually well as he tried to lift himself. Lifting his torso Luke examined the ground beneath him. “That’s funny, this ground is camouflage, no wonder I didn’t see it.” He began to chuckle uneasily, trying to lift himself from his awkward position. That’s when he felt it: warmth. The ground was warm! “Ahhyehh, oh goodness!” Luke screamed in surprise and horror at the realization that his soft landing was not carpet, but bodies.

As she hoisted him to his feet again, Sarah shouted something about hurrying, but she remained motionless as Luke looked at the bodies strewn about. “They’re not,” he nodded at the body he now stood by, “are they?”

“Dead? No.” Sarah’s eyes locked on one body as she stared distractedly, “not most of them.”

* * *

”Reception to Dr. Gordon. Dr. Gordon please call three five zero. Call three five zero.”

“Oh, where’s that danged phone. Keep an eye on her, she’s moving faster than normal, and the upper floors aren’t ready yet. In fact, send another team in to keep her occupied!”

“Doctor, she’s entering a patient’s room—incredible! It seems she’s bringing the patient with her!”

“She what??! Let me see that tracking screen! This is unbelievable; she’s never done this before. Sometimes I’m worried that she’ll hurt the patients, but take one with her? Keep her covered, see if you can’t catch a glimpse of them on one of the remaining security cameras.”

“What are you planning Miss Marshall?” Dr. Gordon glanced around distractedly, as if looking for something; suddenly remembering the phone, he rushed to his desk covered in charts and electronic equipment, sweeping half of it onto the floor in search of the receiver. I really ought to keep this thing neater. One of these days there’ll be an emergency— it would be a grievous mistake to try to dial 911 on a motherboard.

Seeing the telephone, Dr. Gordon grabbed the receiver and started pounding numbers. “Three-two-seven. No, what is that extension again? Ummm, three-nine-seven...no! No! No! Dang it! Where’s that list of extensions?” The man pushed more equipment off his desk, hoping to somehow reveal a small slip of paper, but only exacerbating the disorder.

“Doctor, that extra team is reaching the floor now.”

“Dang it! I’m missing the most interesting development in years, does anyone know Miss Christianson’s extension??!”

One of the guards by the elevator door piped up, “Three-five-zero!”

Gordon gave half a smile as he glanced at the young man, “I figured you would know.”

Punching the appropriate numbers Dr. Gordon raised the receiver to his ear just as shouts of panic and tranq-fire broke out over the command speaker. “What’s going on?! Someone tell me what the heck is going on up there!”

“I’m not sure sir, all the tracking signals are too close together. Let me see, it seems she’s left the patient in the hall and has engaged the team.”

”Hello? Yes Miss Christianson, what is it? I’m a little busy down here right now with the current exercise.”

“Doctor, the body stats on three of the men show signs of tranqs hitting their system—now four!”

The command speaker continued to broadcast the general lashing that his men were receiving...

Gordon covered the receiver and hissed loudly, “She’s obviously got them cornered, so tell them to pull out, now!”

Gordon returned distractedly to his phone conversation.

”Yes, yes—wait! Did you say twenty? Blast! We won’t be done down here for another forty, minimum!” Dr. Gordon took a deep breath trying to calm himself and sort out the facts in his head of these two critically important projects. “Okay, I need you to do something for me—something very important.” Gordon paused until Susan had her notepad ready. “At the time of my appointment with Mr. Underhill, go to my computer. Open the folder on my desktop entitled Cirith Ungol. Run the program named Operation Sharkey. After that leave the computer, and in fact you can go home early. Did you understand all of that?”

Pop. The sound made Dr. Gordon freeze. That sound— it sounded like. “Who the heck authorized the use of firearms!?!” The room was silent as Dr. Gordon glared at his command crew. Dr. Gordon realized he was still on the phone just as two more shots came over the speaker “Man down! I repeat we have a AHH! My leg!”

The whole room sat in silence, waiting for anything from the other end of the command speaker, but greeted only by the constant whine of the alarm. “Sir, Parker’s stats just redlined.”

Gordon glanced down at the phone in his hand in stunned silence. How did this happen, what about the weapons checks? Once again realizing he was still on the phone, the doctor mumbled a quick goodbye and reached to set the receiver back on its hook. A frightened scream coming over the command speaker startled Gordon from his daze, bringing him back to the gravity of his current situation. “What was that? Someone tell me who that was!”

“The computer indicates it came from Lyle’s radio, but he’s been unconscious for several minutes now. Someone must have depressed the call button.”

The command speaker continued to broadcast some quiet mumbling in the background, but it was inaudible over the wail of the alarms.

“Clear the teams homing signals from the computer, I want to be able to see where Miss Marshall’s at!”

“No need sir, Marshall and her guest just entered the elevator.”

“A camera! We’ve got a camera in that elevator, I want it on this screen, now!”

Dr. Gordon paused with a huff as the technician patched through to the elevator camera. Looking at the surveillance screen Gordon stared at Sarah Marshall’s face. “Boy does she look ticked.” A look of panic swept across his face as he examined the face of her patient. “Mr. Legs, is it. How could she have... No, she doesn’t, he was just... Dang it! What is she up to?” As if drawn by his shout, Sarah’s eyes panned upward, spying the camera and locking gaze with Doctor Gordon through the viewscreen. Suddenly her hand came up and the screen turned to static as her stolen firearm obliterated the small surveillance camera.

“Shoot! Can’t she at least let me have my cameras during this exercise?”

“Sir, you did tell her to act like this was the real thing this time—not to pull punches.”

“Yes, but she knows it’s still an exercise. Who do we have on the next floor?”

“Well sir, we’ve got two—wait! Wait! Something’s not right!”

“What! What is it?”

“Well sir, as far as I can tell, she’s not going to the next floor.”

“What do you mean she’s not going to the next floor?”

“I mean sir, I think, I think she’s coming down here.”

* * *

“DOWN! Are you crazy?! We’ve got to get out of here! We’ve—”

“QUIET!”

Luke’s ears winced as she shouted him down, adding to the ringing his ears had gotten from her firing that pistol in the elevator.

“Now you listen to me. I’ve been here a long time, and I know what Gordon is like. He won’t let us just waltz out of here—you can’t just take the express elevator to the top, it doesn’t work that way. Besides, he and I need to have a little chat.”

Luke watched Sarah in stunned silence as she looked around thinking. Glancing upward, a look of deviousness came over her face and she proceeded to grab the taser from beneath her jumpsuit. Luke stared in wonder as she disassembled the thing piece by piece, removing a simple-looking silicon board from the center of the weapon and tossing the rest of the taser aside. “What are you doing?”

“Do you get squeamish around blood?”

Luke chuckled, “I’m a skater. It’s in my line of work.”

“Good.” With that Sarah dug the corner of the board into her forehead, pressing it into her skin with hardly a flinch, her eyes set with a fierce determination that hid any knowledge of pain.

“What are you doing?” Luke gushed. “What is that going to—”

Before he could finish his sentence, Sarah reached up with her gun, placing the butt of it against her forehead, and pushed toward the cut she had made with the edge of the board, carefully, but firmly, as though a skilled surgeon.

To Luke’s amazement a small pill-like chip gradually emerged from the gash, followed by a fair amount of blood, which Sarah only half-successfully slowed by pressing the cut closed with the butt of her gun. Dropping the circuit board, Sarah clutched the chip tightly in her hand, until she felt that her forehead had quit bleeding as much.

“Why did you—”

“Quiet, just. Just quiet, okay?”

“Sorry.”

“Hold out your hand.”

“What, I—”

“Now!”

As Luke held out his hand, Sarah dropped the chip quickly into his palm and clenched his fist with her hand.

“Hold this. Whatever you do, don’t let go until I tell you to, understand?”

“Umm, ok.”

“I mean it, I’ve got a plan, but you have to hold that until I tell you that you can let go!”

* * *

“What do you mean her heart skipped a beat?”

“Just that. The computer showed her going under some serious head trauma, then her heart stopped... then it started again.”

“I have had her in this lab for nine years. Nine years! Never has her heart come close to stopping from a little head trauma.”

“This was not a little head trauma; this was serious damage to her forehead!”

“How does she get serious damage to her forehead in an elevator you idiot? It only goes up and down! Your computer is obviously going haywire, along with everything else in this experiment!”

Gordon continued shouting, this time barking orders at the guards standing by the emergency staircase, “You! Get over here, you help those two cover the elevator. She is not to get in here, understand!”

The two men rushed around the central command pit and stood in front of the elevator, forming a half-circle with the other two men.

“Where’s she at now?”

“Four floors up. Three floors...two...one! Wait!! She’s stopped the elevator at the floor above us, and she’s just sitting there—both of them are just sitting in the elevator.”

Gordon paused anxiously, hoping silently she would not continue downward, knowing she would be very upset, and knowing how impossible it was to deal with her when she was like this...Gordon ran to his desk, opened the top drawer and pulled out a small pistol, hoping it wouldn’t be necessary... ‘What is she doing dang it!’

“Ok! Wait, ok the elevator’s moving again—down. She’s here.”

Gordon heard the ding of the elevator and glanced up to see Luke sitting silently in the elevator, just as Sarah kicked open the door from the emergency staircase.

Pop Pop. Two of the guards sank to the ground as tranquilizer darts struck them squarely in the back.

Pop Pop. The other two guards spun around just in time to receive one each in the chest, and join the other two in a lump on the floor.

“What’s going on!”

Gordon watched as his technician slumped in his chair, leaving his question unanswered except by the sound of an empty tranq gun hitting the floor.

The doctor spun to see Sarah standing in the door holding a very real firearm, and glaring at him with a look that made him wish he could sink to the floor unconscious like his men.

“Dang it Sarah! What are you doing here, the exercise dictated you were suppose to go up to the next level!

“I’m sick of your exercises. In fact, I’m sick of being here—of being your guinea pig!”

“Alright, alright. Calm down, you know you’re not supposed to kill anyone.”

Sarah hissed in anger, “They weren’t supposed to use real bullets!!”

“You’re right, you’re right They were out of line—I didn’t tell them to But now you are out of line.”

“Oh yes, I’m very out of line!” Sarah smiled evilly, “What’s more; I’m getting out of here!”

Gordon shook his head, “You know you won’t last very long.”

“I’m willing to take my chances!”

“You know you need this, without it you don’t stand a chance.” As he spoke Gordon slowly pulled a vial, filled with green liquid from his coat pocket.

“I already have everything I need, and you and, and that,” she said, gesturing toward the vial, “are not needed anymore!”

“Oh...? Are you so sure? You know what happens when you—”

With that Sarah fired. Again and again she pointed the weapon and pulled the trigger, destroying screens, speakers, medical equipment, as much as she could until her gun was empty.

“Now I’m leaving, and if I so much as see another guard... So-help-me I will kill them. Then I’ll come back down here and kill you! Now let me go! You hear me?! Let! Me! Go!”

“Ok, ok, no one’s keeping you here. Leave when you want, but know that if you ever want to come back, you’re welcome here. You’re welcome home.”

Tears fell from Sarah’s eyes, as a look of hate covered her face, “This is NOT MY HOME!!”

* * *

Luke had watched all of this from the doorway of the elevator, and, seeing the glint of a pistol in the doctor’s hand, realized that neither of them intended to let the other live. He won’t be able to kill her first, she’s too fast. But if she kills him I may never discover why I have these casts!

Glancing around, Luke noticed a small, open-sided cart that could be used to transport boxes or equipment, or maybe even—lumber. That’s it! Just like the ones at Home Depot that we used to roll around back in the back corner by the Sheetrock! Crawling quickly over to it, Luke grabbed the cart and slid onto it like a belly board. Using his hands off the sides and front, Luke directed himself toward the command pit and the Doctor, and propelled himself with his hands as hard as possible. The Loon was back at it!

Gordon turned just in time to see the cart flying toward him off the edge of platform above the command pit.

Panicking, Gordon raised his hands, one with the vial, the other with the gun, and cried something inaudible right before the cart struck him square in the chest causing him to drop the gun and knocking him to the ground unconscious.

Luke cringed as he felt a pain in his left arm right before landing on the ground, rolling over top the doctor and into a nearby computer terminal. Groggily he glanced down to see a tranq dart lodged in his shoulder, and turned his eyes to the dart gun in Sarah’s hands. Shifting his weight off his right leg, Luke pressed his hand to his right thigh and blacked out.

* * *

“Luke! Luke! We’re in Westwood! I need to know where your house is. Luke!”

Luke felt a jerk as the vehicle stuttered to a stop. Scenes from his recent abduction ran through his head as he recognized the familiar sound of a van. Shaking his head wearily, Luke opened his eyes to see a red light—a traffic light! Thank goodness, it was just a dream!

“Luke! C’mon, I know you’re awake, I need directions here!”

Luke turned his head and opened his eyes to see a familiar face. Where do I know that face?.

“Hey, talk to me here—that’s an order!”

Suddenly it clicked. Sarah! Luke sat up and looked around. He was in the passenger seat of a van that looked just like the one he had been taken to the lab in.

“Hey! C’mon, do I turn right or left here?”

Luke looked up to see the familiar T-square intersection of Westwood Main and Pine. “Uhh, left.”

Luke was further awakened by the sound of honking and looked back, noticing the large white pickup that had just been cut off. “Hey, watch what you’re doing, you’re going to get us killed!”

“Hey! It’s not my fault I can’t drive; I don’t exactly get out much!” A joyous smile crept across Sarah’s face. “But I’m out!”

“Right.”

“No really, its—”

“NO! I MEAN TURN!”

Luke closed his eyes as he heard tires squeal.

“It’s ok, we’re good. Now, where to?”

The directions to Luke’s house took them several more minutes of chaotic driving accompanied by several apologies for the wayward tranquilizer dart, and when they arrived Luke was just as happy to be stopped on solid ground as he was to see the simple tree-laden yard of his mom’s house. Sarah hopped out, helping Luke steady himself as he climbed down out of the van. Once he was down she watched as he slowly waddled toward his front door. “See, you’re getting it!”

Luke turned slowly and looked at her inquisitively, “So aren’t you coming in?”

“No, I have some, some things to do. But before you go, can you give me a hug?”

Luke was shocked. This same girl that tried to break his hand, accidentally hit him with a tranq dart, wanted a hug?

“Uhh, sure.”

Sarah approached and reached her arms around him in a simple embrace. Just as Luke started to believe it was possible that she really did just want a hug, Sarah grabbed his right hand and started twisting it, shouting at him angrily, “Where is it?! What did you do with it?!”

Luke nearly sobbed from the pain, “With what? What are you talking about?”

“The vial—what did you do with it?”

Luke was shocked. She was after the vial after all. Painfully he reached across under his robe and pulled the vial from his right cast. “I, I just switched sides, that’s all.”

Sarah released his hand and grabbed the vial. Rushing to the van she muttered something that sounded like either an excuse or an apology and hopped in. Staring after her in confusion, Luke watched as she swung the van out quickly, narrowly missing an old Mustang parked on the side of the road. As the van squealed off into the distance, Luke reached his arm back to his right cast to reveal the other vial he had tucked there.

Why was she so desperate for this? What makes it so important to her? What did that doctor guy say? She ‘needed’ it??

“I better call Aunt Abby, she’s a chemist. I bet she’d know something about what this is.”