With These Eyes (6 page)

"Vaccine check - open up!"

Lionel reached his arm out and turned the
handle, pulling the heavy oak door towards himself. The entryway
revealed the Troopers in black jump-suits. The one who had been
pounding on the door raised his biometrics scanner to Lionel's
face. The device's bright light was a bit disorienting to him and
moments later, the Trooper was reading Lionel's profile. A screen
similar to what had appeared at the neighbors' showed Lionel's
picture and instructions for quarantine. The driver's license photo
on the screen showed his hair before it had turned grey and his
hairline had moved backwards into a horseshoe-shape.

"Lionel de Fleur?" barked the Trooper.

"Yes?" Lionel responded cautiously.

Without wasting a beat, the Trooper followed
the instructions on the screen of his clipboard. After a speech
about Lionel being a danger to national health, the paramilitary
visitor glanced back at his display. Unseen by Lionel's eyes was a
profile that designated him as a political and economic threat to
the firm with no worthwhile assets.

"Sir, you will be injected with the vaccine
and quarantined in your home."

Lionel didn't like at all what he was
hearing. From his career as a journalist, he knew that Apophis had
a history of conducting pharmaceutical tests disguised as vaccines
on entire populations. He had never taken a flu vaccine and was
hoping to keep things that way. The aging journalist was getting a
glimpse at the mayhem outside as he saw most of his neighbors
getting dragged onto the cattle transport.

"I'd hate to ask, but is there another
option?"

The Trooper shouted back, "You will be
vaccinated by force and taken to an Apophis quarantine
facility."

Lionel rolled up his sleeve and, without
another word, the Trooper pulled out a vaccine gun that was loaded
with the lethal strain. The vial that sat inserted on top of the
gun was still fairly full - enough doses to wipe out several
neighborhoods.

"How will I know when I can leave my house
again?" Lionel asked concerned.

"You will be notified," barked the Trooper as
he tagged him with a wireless wrist-bracelet. He handed Lionel an
“I've been vaccinated” button and uttered his parting words.

"Have a nice day!"

The Trooper slammed the door shut. Moments
later, Lionel could hear the hissing of an aerosol can as foam
cement filled the gap that separated his door from its frame.
Troopers swarmed the perimeter of the California ranch-style house.
Within a few moments, foam sealed windows and the back door of his
home.

Lionel was trapped inside.

8 A WARRIOR RECEIVES HER MISSION

The sun was nearing its zenith. Most people
in Los Angeles were already counting the minutes to their lunch
hour. Most people; not Tasha Methusa.

Tasha was a very athletic and attractive
woman in her early thirties with cocoa-brown skin. She kept her
hair in thick curls reminiscent of a head of snakes. Tasha’s
parents were the dictatorial leaders of the small East-African
nation Eritrea. The young woman had left her homeland because she
didn't agree with the concept of a dictatorship. Thanks to her
militaristic upbringing, Tasha had found employ as the commander of
the Apophis Corporation’s covert unit. She was sworn to dispose of
those Gene deemed industrial spies or terrorists.

Tasha lived in the hills of Los Angeles in
one of the most technologically-advanced homes anyone could
imagine. Where Isabelle's house was designed to incorporate nature
in its functionality and decor, Tasha's house used electronics and
automation. Every room in the urban warrior's home contained
multiple screens so she could stay abreast with e-mails and track
subjects under pursuit. The only photograph decorated the living
room. In a stainless-steel frame, the image of her parents reminded
Tasha of her childhood in Africa.

It was a late morning, even for Tasha.
Despite the thrill that chasing people brought her, she would
always make time, as she put it, “to have some fun.” She had been
up most of the night, celebrating the merger. With it came more
power for Tasha. Her elite undercover forces were second to none.
It was their specialty to dispose of inconvenient people. Tasha and
her Troopers would do so by implicating their subjects in crimes
about which they knew little until getting arrested for them. This
method had proven less risky than simply rubbing someone out,
particularly because it drew negative attention to the victim, not
Tasha and her forces. However, given the opportunity, Tasha didn't
exactly shy away from what she called “justified kills.”

Tasha was in her futuristic kitchen,
preparing a protein and vitamin shake. Her skimpy purple underwear
and a sports-bra left little to any observer's imagination. The
only other item on her muscle-bound body was a miniature phone
clipped to her undies. It would have been a rare moment to see
Tasha without anything digital. She felt the need to stay connected
to the global hive via some kind of device at all times. The front
door slammed shut. Two very attractive young women were on their
way to a yellow Italian sports car in the driveway. Giggling and
chatting, the two women appeared very happy as they sat down into
their car and started the engine. A smile came to Tasha's face. She
heard the sound of the car peeling out of the driveway and dropped
a couple of strawberries into the running blender.

Tasha drank a sip out of the blender's jar
and carried it with her into the next room. She placed her
breakfast, swirled in red and blue, on an interactive tabletop. A
few voice commands and the table's surface displayed a list of her
current suspects and targets. Tasha flipped through several
profiles that showed each of the individual's whereabouts, phone
conversations and images from traffic, security and laptop cameras.
The phone on her hip rang. Tasha answered it before it had a chance
to ring a second time.

"Methusa!" Hers was the voice of a soldier
addressing a superior officer.

Instead of someone's response, a sequence of
three tones played and repeated. Then, the call disconnected. Tasha
snapped her phone shut and headed to the kitchen where she poured
the rest of her breakfast down the drain. She rushed to the bedroom
to get dressed. Although practical for combat, Tasha's attire
managed to underline her sexy appearance. As usual, purple was the
dominant color in her clothes and gear. She clipped, belted and
strapped on a multitude of weapons, communications equipment and
survival gear. One would have never known the lethal arsenal she
had concealed on her body when looking at Tasha fully dressed. Last
but not least, Tasha carefully took a silver locket out of a wooden
box on her dresser. It was the only piece of jewelry she ever wore.
The covert assassin placed the sterling heart around her neck when
a call came in. Tasha rushed to the living room to answer it. Her
body and mind were at attention as Gene's image appeared on an
interactive wall panel.

"Sir!"

The confident expression on Gene's face from
earlier that morning had given way to one of slight anger. He
barked at Tasha. "I have a mission for you, Commander. "

Tasha's blood-lust was showing through her
military discipline. It was as if Dr. Pavlov had rang the bell to
feed his dogs. Tasha hungrily replied, "We have a target to
eliminate then?"

Gene's ego wasn't ready to accept that any
one person could pose a real threat to his plan. "A simple show of
strength should be enough to send this one crawling back under her
rock," he boasted. Gene slid Isabelle's dossier from his onto the
warrior's screen.

Tasha's appetite for action grew as her eyes
explored Isabelle's image for a moment before she snapped back into
her martial demeanor. "Very well, sir. I will report in as soon as
I have taken care of the problem."

"Good," Gene replied.

Tasha could see his grin push the anger off
Gene's face, just before he disconnected the call.

9 ISABELLE FEELS THE HEAT

Isabelle had left her office. With still no
access to the Internet or any of her digital files, she decided to
spend the rest of the afternoon at the library. In the trunk of her
car was a crate of literature. Several of the books discussed
folklore surrounding ball lightning and other atmospheric
phenomenon that conventional physics could not explain properly.
Since Isabelle’s car was a hybrid, it still required gas and the
tank was nearing empty.

Isabelle arrived at the gas station near the
media center. A tractor-trailer cement mixer with a barrel that was
striped in blue and purple was parked curbside. The filling station
wasn't very busy and Isabelle pulled up to a pump on her right. A
quick reach into her bag and Isabelle had her debit card in hand.
Television played on the pump's video screen.

Ponytail
host Michael Leese was
standing in the Arctic frost. Green and yellow ripples of aurorae
borealis illuminated the night sky above him in a mystical display
of color and light. Serving as Michael's background was the
entrance to the Apophis seed-bank. A megalithic blast door locked
in the seed stock from Earth's nations. The popular television
personality was eagerly promoting one of Gene's many institutions.
His voice, which had become a familiar sound to most, was booming
from the overhead speakers.

"I don't know about you, but I sleep well,
knowing that our agricultural heritage is safe from terrorists and
disasters, here in the permanent frost of the arctic..."

The video was replaced by a computer message
asking Isabelle to see the gas-station attendant. She turned
towards the mini-mart on the far end of the property. Sling-bag in
hand, she walked towards the entrance where a man was being
arrested for shoplifting. One of two policemen was taking the
handcuffed man to the back of the squad car. The other uniformed
peacekeeper was holding an evidence bag with a bottle of water in
his hand. Isabelle walked past the police cruiser and entered the
store. A customer was pouring countless individual-sized creamers
into a foam cup of sludgy coffee. The clerk stood behind the
counter, setting up a display of erectile-dysfunction medication.
Isabelle walked up to the counter and addressed the sales
person.

"The pump didn't take my card."

This was a conversation the person at the
register had several dozen times a day. He didn't need to think
about the answer he gave everyone. "It does that sometimes to see
if you're really the cardholder. Could I see your driver's
license?"

Isabelle reached into her bag to retrieve the
requested item, but she came up empty. "I know I had it
yesterday."

The clerk had heard this answer hundreds of
times. "I'm sorry, ma'am, but once the system asks for your I.D., I
can't sell you anything until I see it."

Isabelle reached for some money. "You do take
cash, don't you?"

The clerk muttered a sympathetic "sorry" as
he lazily pointed over his shoulder where a sign read:

For Your Safety and Convenience, NO Cash or
Checks accepted.

Isabelle said good-bye to the less than
helpful man and returned to her car, hoping she had enough gas left
for the rest of the drive. She drove past the cement mixer as she
pulled into traffic. It was Tasha's strategy to hide in plain
sight. Her theory was that the more heavy equipment she employed,
the less people suspected it to be someone's disguise. The enormous
cement mixer was a shining example of this approach. The barrel
housed one of Tasha's state-of-the-art surveillance rooms. Its
interior was home to an array of equipment that enabled Tasha to
gather incredible amounts of information on her prey. The drum's
concave shape served as a panoramic screen. A three-dimensional
image of Isabelle filled the semi-sphere. The system that had been
partially developed by Tasha used every digital imaging device
within range to composite an uninterrupted video representation of
her suspect.

Virtually any consumer device with a camera
or infrared sensor had been built to provide some type of outside
connection. Through Internet and most devices' cordless functions,
the system was able to access cell phones, laptops, and security
cameras on structures and in vehicles. A micro-camera Tasha had
invisibly placed in Isabelle's windshield-washer nozzle afforded a
larger than life close-up whenever she was in her car. Isabelle's
camera-phone supplied a constant audio feed and periodic snapshots
when the situation allowed the view. Surrounded by the dome-shaped
screen, Tasha sat in the center of the sinister room. Flanking the
Commander were two of her Troopers. The rest of the covert platoon
wasn't far. Tasha reached for the talk-button in the console before
her.

"Package is on the move. Purple team proceed
east on Sixth."

Tasha's command emanated from two dozen
cell-phone earpieces and text displays that kept her platoon in
constant contact. Several vehicles in and around the gas station
started up and populated the lanes around Isabelle's bright-yellow
car. The special-forces platoon consisted of two dozen men and
women from their early twenties to mid-fifties. Her Troopers came
in all races and body sizes. Everyone was dressed to blend in. Each
member of the platoon was monitoring his or her cell phone via
headset or reading Tasha's commands as the system transcribed them
into a constant stream of text messages. The vehicle pool consisted
of twelve cars and a command post. All but one where high-end,
painted in nondescript colors such as grey or white. The lack of
saturated colors made the vehicles less memorable and thus helped
the squadron to blend into the background. The only exception was a
dark-blue 1980s Japanese model of an automaker that no longer
existed. The clunker served as a rolling obstacle. With its smoking
tailpipe, it would be the sort of vehicle someone would expect to
drive slowly. When needed, this helped Tasha decelerate her prey
enough so all her vehicles could stay in pursuit.