Agent on the Run (The Agents for Good) (12 page)

Elon broke his gaze on Maria to glance at Chantry, “Unknowingly Chantry.”

Tears were slipping down Maria’s face as she asked, “How?”

Elon gestured to the makeup that Maria used to give herself an older appearance that was even now starting to run and smear because of the tears dripping down her face, “Through your makeup. An old enemy of Chantry’s got the bright idea to lace your makeup with a synthetic toxic compound, when he learned that you had become Chantry’s primary caregiver. The synthetic compound works in two ways. First you have it on your hands and you touch Chantry and the stuff he touches a lot on a daily basis. Secondly it gets absorbed into you and you exude it out in your breath. It’s really not a heavy-metal concentrate, as much as it’s an exotic nerve compound that only manifests itself in slightly raised concentrations of heavy metals in the blood.”

Maria turned to Chantry now a complete bucket of tears, “I’m so sor……”

Chantry abruptly cut her unnecessary apology off by addressing Elon with a panicked question, “Maria is in no danger from this nerve toxin is she?”

“No, her body handled it well and she has no damage from it yet, but in time she could have.”

Chantry breathed out a sigh of relief and turned to Maria, who was looking at him in complete misery. “Don’t you dare apologize for this my dear! Now I want you to go and get that poison washed off before it does hurt you.”

Maria nodded still looking miserable and got up and left to go back to the mansion.

Elon watched her go and then commented, “She really does love you Chantry.”

“Has it taken you that long to figure that out boy?” Chantry fired back disgruntled sounding.

Elon went on, as if Chantry hadn’t spoken, “That’s good that she can still love.” He didn’t elaborate further on his statement.

“Do you still allow yourself to love Elon?” Chantry asked inquisitively, after a few slow minutes had passed by without a word being spoken.

Elon glanced at him, “All the time.”

“That must be hard.” Chantry softly commented.

“It depends on your perspective I guess, but yes it can be painful.”

Chantry glanced to the side and saw that Maria was coming back. It was evident from her wet hair and change of clothes that she had showered. Her face was now a serene mask of control that didn’t fool Chantry.

“Would you like to go back inside?” She asked Chantry.

“I would dear thank you.”

Maria stepped behind the wheelchair and started Chantry towards the mansion. Chantry didn’t see the way her mask of control broke up into pathos or how her jaw ticked with rough emotion, but Elon did. He watched her go missing no detail in the evident recrimination that she was putting herself through, as she gazed down at the white headed man before her.

Maria was tough, but right now she was all broken up inside, as she repeated over and over inside what her part in unknowingly killing her master had been. It was one of the dangers of allowing oneself to love. Loving others could be brutal, especially when you were at fault for hurting them.

Elon watched her movements, as she pushed Chantry away. Even in her grief her movements were undeniably feminine and attractive. Her wet hair clung to her skin that now shown forth in the absence of makeup with youthful vigor. The same long lived youthful vigor that was going to make her a problem again, when Chantry was gone.

Maria was nothing but a problem for Elon. He watched her go his hand tightening to a fist on the table, as he willed himself not to respond, but it was useless. Gritting his teeth he reached down and adjusted himself with one hand through his pants. Maria was nothing, but a living breathing torment that he needed to stay away from as far as possible!

Elon got up and quickly left the estate in the country knowing that he would have to return soon for a funeral.

Chapter Ten

Jumpstart to Life

I stepped into the apartment only to behold a scene of tangled wires and busy monitors. Jane had been busy, but at what?

Where was she?

I saw her rise up and in her hand was a gun. She wasn’t alone. The door behind me opened as men in suits closed around me and took my weapons along with the backpack holding the devices.

I stood there betrayed and I had to admit that I wasn’t really all that surprised by the occurrence knowing what I did about Jane.

I just wished that she had taken longer to play out whatever angle she’d been up to so I could’ve skipped town with the gizmo she was making before the trap had closed in on me. My mission was a failure, unless Flicker could come to my aid. Then maybe there was a chance that the gloomy outlook of this situation might once again be turned back for good.

I had never been so reliant on a woman before in my life than I was right now. It was a new experience and a humbling one. I started saying a few prayers, as well as screaming a few urgent thoughts in my mind, but I wasn’t getting any corresponding answers from either God or my girlfriend.

‘Hello girlfriend need a spot here! Need you to save the day again! Anytime now!!!’

Flicker didn’t respond, which was when a frisson of concern went through me. Had they caught her too?

Was she even now dead?

I stifled that last thought quickly or it would have overwhelmed me. The little dots on my head just weren’t working was all, which meant that for at least the time being I was alone and that I would have to handle this by myself.

I watched a suited goon, who seemed to exhibit no emotion at all hand the two devices from the gorilla to Jane, who took them greedily from him. Going to a table that bore a single shiny metal plated device she pressed two panels open and slid the two devices into the corresponding slots that were open and available to receive them. The trays closed and the device began to hum and then it glowed blue, as it levitated up off the surface of the table.

“Congratulations Doctor, you’ve done it! This is all we yet needed in order to make the transformation.” The lead goon said.

Jane nodded abstractly, as she studied the device before her.

I spoke up, as my hands were being cuffed together by one of the other goons, “So I’m guessing that device isn’t for disrupting the mind control devices that you have manipulated members of the Agency with.”

The man who’d praised Jane came to me and lifted his gun to my head, “You are of no further use to us.”

Darn! Where was my girlfriend when I needed her?

I almost felt the bullet blow my brains loose, when Jane suddenly spoke, “I would like to further use this one for pain testing First Officer.”

The man with the gun to my head glanced to Jane questioningly before shrugging, “As you wish Doctor. Bring him!” The headman stepped out of the room with the device held securely against him, as if it was the only thing he cherished in life.

Jane stepped out toward me and I longed for the bullet that I’d been about to receive, as my mind filled with the many atrocities that this woman had done in the name of science. How could I have been such a fool to let this woman get the upper hand, when I’d known from the first day that she wasn’t to be trusted?

I glared my hate at her, as I was held securely in place by three of the suited men. Her hands reached up to then glide down my chest, until further down past my waist she gripped my maleness through my pants and said, “I am so looking forward to our time together in the lab, as I deconstruct you and then build you back up into a creation of my imagination.”

My mind filled with the images of what had been done to the demented gorilla monster and I felt revulsion rise up in me at the thought of ending up like it or made into something worse.

Jane let go of me laughing, “Take him outside. Have him transported to the lab that has been set up for me. I’ll begin his transformation as soon as we land.”

I was jerked out the door by the guys in suits, as I watched Jane arm a bomb detonator to take out the apartment with all of its technology.

‘Come on Flicker!!!’

There was still no response from my girlfriend. I felt hope fading fast, as I was herded outside into the sunlight. There was a sudden shriekingly loud sound that kicked up a dust storm within the town as windows shattered at the sudden appearance of a flying vessel that looked like it belonged in outer space.

My jaw dropped in astonishment, as I took in the alien looking vessel that landed not too far from us in a parking lot. It pivoted around presenting us with the rear of the vessel from which a gangway lowered down, as the vessel continued to hover just above the pavement of the parking lot.

I was roughly shoved forward toward it, and all I could think was that the Agency and for that matter the entire world, had a lot more to worry about than just a few mind controlled board members. This level of technology was beyond anything that anyone else surely had access to on the planet. How had the remnants of the Code people increased in technology so fast?

I didn’t know how, but they had. I had to do something about it, but what?

As I stepped on board the sleek craft something was jammed into my neck and I passed out moments later.

The craft with its cargo of individuals now loaded roared out over the town causing even more shattered windows and fractured nerves, as people ran to and fro in mass panic at the sighting of so alien a sight as the ship was to them. The vessel once it cleared the ground, rocketed upward into the atmosphere at a lightning pace, as it started out on its path of leaving Earth’s atmosphere altogether.

The vessel had a target that shone brightly ahead in the gloomy darkness of space, the moon. It was a fast trip, as the vessel locked its coordinates on the moon base that had been three months in the construction of and had only been completed the previous week.

An abrupt jar stirred me partially out of the delirium I was in. With a grunt of pain I felt myself being dumped onto a stretcher of some kind and then I was picked up and carried roughly along. My eyes peered open, my brain thick and foggy, as I struggled for full consciousness to make sense out of what was happening.

I was being carried down a long hallway. Occasionally windows appeared in the unbroken corridor. There was something outside.

I squinted and focused waiting for the next window. My jaw fell open partially, as I realized that what I’d seen before was Earth!

I wasn’t on the planet!

Consciousness came back to me in leaps and bounds then, but I kept it to myself doing my best to make it look like I was still groggy and half knocked out. Doors opened ahead of us and a large domed space opened overhead.

It was hard to keep my sense of awe to myself. How had they done all this?

I was pretty sure that if I was looking at Earth out the window then the structure I was in had to be located on the moon. Who could have guessed that the Code had gone into space in order to hide from the heavy retribution acted out against them by the survivors of their harsh rule upon the Earth?

I saw the guy with the anxious trigger finger break off with most of the group following on after him and his glowing metallic blue device, while I was taken off elsewhere on the stretcher. I really didn’t want to think about how I might have just been penciled in as humanity’s best last chance for freedom. Even more than that I didn’t want to contemplate on the fact that I may have just handed over to the enemy what they needed to turn the tide of war.

Yeah it had been a bad day. To top it all off it looked like my girlfriend had ditched me or worse yet wasn’t able to come to my aid. Things were bleak no matter what way you looked at it.

I seemed to have arrived at wherever my stretcher bearers had been intent on taking me. I tensed my muscles in preparation to attempt to take the two of them on, when they unceremoniously dumped me off the stretcher. Before I could recover from the surprise of that they were both at me kicking viciously.

Oh it hurt! What kind of hard implemented organ and spine massage doesn’t?

I was gasping for breath and feeling like I was dying by the time they hauled me up off the floor and slammed me down on top of an exam table. My arms and legs were quickly fastened to it and my two assailants left the room leaving me alone in the lab.

I tested the restraints. I wasn’t getting out of them.

“Way to save the world Utah!” I said out loud in a self-deprecating manner.

“God I could really use some help right now!” I said in a humble plea for the miraculous to occur.

The door opened and I glanced up to see Jane walk into the lab.

My head fell back against the table, as I stared up at the ceiling, as if I was looking into heaven. My thought was, “Really God? Look I know I’m in danger of repeating Job’s sin by asking this, but why when I call out for help do You send me the one individual who wants to playfully cut my manhood off and turn me into a mechanical vegetable?”

Jane was by my side at the table and she was smiling, “I assure you honey that removing this is the last thing I would ever contemplate doing.” She finished with, as she patted my trousers.

Okay so that was downright creepy! She apparently could read my mind to, which was just great!!!

Jane moved from out of my sight and I prepared for the worst to begin. The restraints suddenly released me and I lay there for a shocked moment before I rolled off the table and onto my feet turning to stare at Jane as I did so. She was still smiling, as she came up to me.

She handed me a gunish looking device and said, “Just pull the trigger like you would a gun and give these to Flicker when you see her.” Jane finished, as she handed me a bag of small round discs such as I had on my head.

I took the bag not knowing what to say. Jane wasn’t a traitor?

“It will all become clear in time Utah. Now follow me.” Jane said, as she started out from the laboratory.

I followed on after her, as I prepared to drill anyone that showed with the death ray looking blaster I held in my hand.

Jane headed out from the lab and down a series of glistening technology laden corridors. We came to a partition door and through the glass pane I could see a lot of people gathered in what appeared to be a central control room.