Page 13 of Black Bay Protector
Doctor Jerome was still staring at the screen, a small frown on his face. “It would seem the memory wipe wasn’t as effective as we’d hoped.” His eyes flicked to her. “The test was necessary and it wasn’t an opportunity I could pass up.”
There had been trouble with the first batch of soldiers they’d upgraded. When they’d woken up, faced with their new reality, many of them had fought the programming to the point where they’d damaged themselves. Some went so far as to self-terminate. After much deliberation, it had been decided that the best course of action was to wipe their memories. Clean slate. As far as they’d been able to tell, the erasure had worked, but they’d been warned it might not hold up to powerful, visceral memories like those created by family and loved ones. It was a scenario Anne had never thought the upgraded soldiers would encounter, not for the types of missions the government intended to use them for.
“How was she even here at this facility?” Anne asked suspiciously. “That’s too big of a coincidence.”
“Of course, it’s not a coincidence,” Doctor Jerome returned. “It needed to be tested, and the Commander’s sister is a nurse. I pulled some strings and got her hired here.” He turned his attention back to the footage on screen and frowned again. “Granted, this wasn’t the test I had in mind, but now we know.”
He shrugged.Shrugged.Because of his test, he’d sent only one soldier and as a result, one of her prime specimens was driving further and further out of her reach.
“The Commander’s rebooting,” the tech told them. “And the tracker’s still active on the target. Do we order him to follow?”
“No,” Anne said before Doctor Jerome could order otherwise. “Have the Commander return to base.” She was about to add that she’d send out a team of her choosing when a sudden thought occurred to her. When she’d been initially incarcerated after the raid all those years ago, she’d asked after her test subjects and had been told they’d been taken care of. The words had been spoken in such a way that she’d assumed the specimens had been euthanized to wipe out any trace of what some had called an abomination of life. But if 5402J4C3 was alive, that meant the others were probably alive as well. With an active tracker, he might just lead her straight to them.
A new anticipation filled her. “Keep an eye on the tracker. Let me know where it ends up.”
The Commander stood up and made his way to the back of the truck. Load up. Move out. Return to base. Simple. Basic. But something was wrong and it wasn’t that his driver was lying unconscious on the ground outside. He didn’t give a shit about him. He’d wake eventually, or not. The Commander didn’t care either way.
Kill the woman. Capture the male. Those had been the orders Doctor Jerome had given him. He’d failed. His target had been in his sights, and he’d drawn his weapon, but when he’d attempted to fire, his finger refused to do his bidding. His brain had misfired and forced a shutdown. Why?
She’d known him. He searched his memory but couldn’t find her anywhere. Who was she? Why was she so sure she knew him? She’d called him a name, hadn’t she?Grady. That’s what she’d said. He was the Commander, but that was a rank, not a name. He’d had a name once... hadn’t he?
His head began to ache as flashes of memories, distant and blurred invaded his head. A smiling face, a slap on the shoulder, a male voice stating,“Commander Carter, good to have you aboard.”
Commander Carter. Was that his name? Another memory, this one a tiny bit clearer, steeped in raw emotion as an older woman cupped his cheek and he bent to embrace her. Her voice trembled as she whispered in his ear,“Stay safe, Grady. Come home to me, son.”
Son. He looked down at his mechanical arm which led to a largely metal rib cage and a mechanical hip and leg. He hadn’t always been like this. The arm hadn’t always been metal. He remembered it once being flesh and blood. There had been a tattoo on the inside of the forearm, he recalled, though he couldn’t quite place what that tattoo had been. He’d been a man once. A man with a mother who loved him. Family, friends...“It’s me, Paige. Your sister.”A sister.
The ache in his head worsened, feeling like hot spikes were being driven into his brain, a sure warning that his thought patterns had breached programming but he didn’t pull back. He was used to pain. He pushed through. He needed to see what was on the other side.
Return to base. The repeated order came through loud and clear but he ignored it. If he returned, they’d want to diagnose him to discover why he’d shut down and then fix the problem. He couldn’t allow them to do that. He needed to know…
Pulling out the blade in his boot, he set to work cutting out his trackers. There were three. He wasn’t supposed to know that, but the same tiny processor they’d planted in his brain that worked to help self-diagnose issues also told him exactly where they were located in his body. Once removed, he crushed them under his boot, patched his wounds with the first-aid kit, grabbed some weapons, and jumped out of the truck.
Ignoring the still-unconscious driver, the Commander set out on foot at a jog. He needed to find answers. Who was he? Or rather, who had he once been? Was he Grady Carter?
It took time, but he finally found what he was looking for. A house that, when he scanned it, showed no life signs. A few he had scanned had only had pets, but he hadn’t wanted to risk a dog barking and alerting the neighbors that something might be wrong.
The lock was easy enough to pick, and once inside, he made his way upstairs. There were three bedrooms. One, judging by the large pink doll house in the corner, was where a little girl probably slept. Had his sister’s room once looked like this? He couldn’t remember. Still couldn’t remember her. But seeing her had donesomething. It wasn’t like floodgates opening. More like a crack in the dam. Memories were slowly seeping through, drip by tiny drip.
The next room had a set of bunk beds and had been decorated in a sports theme with baseballs, basketballs, footballs, and soccer balls. He moved on.
The master bedroom at the end of the hall finally delivered what he was looking for. While the first closet door he opened was full of women’s apparel, the second closet held men’s clothing. The black leather jacket he pulled out and tried on was a bit tight across the shoulders but would work and even had a pair of sunglasses in the breast pocket. Perfect. A ball cap for what was probably a local sports team went on next, and finally, a pair of leather gloves to conceal his metal hand.
Going back to the woman’s closet where he’d seen a full-length mirror on the inside of the door, he looked himself over. Another flash of memory gripped him. It was of him, much younger and leaner than he was now, looking into a similar mirror as he fumbled with the buttons of a black dress shirt, hands trembling. The memory was steeped in so much grief, pain, and loss. A funeral. He’d been preparing for a funeral. Who’s? It was someone important to him, there was no doubt in his mind, but the answer eluded him, buried under the programming.
Closing the door a bit more harshly than necessary, he ground his teeth together. Hewouldfind the answers. And then he would destroy Doctor Jerome and the others who’d done this. He’d take them apart piece by piece or die trying.
He’d died…
An explosion, intense heat, pain.The knowledge that death had come for him…
The Commander barked out a humorless laugh as he made his way back downstairs and out the door.
Chapter Seven
Paigewasdrivingblindly.She knew it was dangerous, to be driving distracted, but with people after them, it was also dangerous to stop. Especially with Jace unconscious. She had stopped briefly to splint his arm as best she could, though she didn’t know if it would do any good. If he’d been fully human, it would need to be amputated, the damage done to it so catastrophic there would have been no chance of saving it. But Jace healed, she reminded herself. Though right now, she wished he’d heal faster so he’d wake up. He’d been out for hours. She didn’t even know where they were going. Just Virginia and Virginia was a big state. All she could do was point the van in the general direction and put as many miles behind them as she could. When Jace woke up, he could get them back on track if she’d drifted off course. And he would wake up. He would. God, he was so pale…
She swallowed hard and brushed impatiently at the tears that were blurring her vision. Her brother was alive. Grady was alive. That knowledge should have brought her so much joy, and yet, all she felt was hurt and betrayal. They’d been lied to.
