Cutting Edge

13

“He’s moving! Back door!”

The warning arrived in the commander’s earpiece as he was backed hard against a spalled concrete wall near the diner’s rear entrance. He readied himself and nodded to the man on the other side of the doorway who was ready with a Taser.

“Remember, quick and quiet, immediate egress!” he whispered into his mic.

He listened intently, waiting for the hard footfalls. He heard only the roar of the Tahoe’s engine out front. Three seconds passed since the last transmission.

Five.

Ten.

Too long. The Tahoe skidded into view, swimming in a beige cloud of dust.

“Five, report!”

Five was now the only man still in front. He was sitting on a park bench across the street, ignoring the stray dog he’d been petting until moments ago — a nice touch of improvisation they’d all agreed. His primary task was to watch for threats — in particular, law enforcement — while the grab went down.

Five responded, “I don’t see him in the … wait…” An excruciating pause. “Target is out the front door! I repeat, front door! He’s getting in a car, late-model Caddy, blue!”

Nothing more had to be said as the team shifted their tactical focus. The commander ran for the Tahoe, his partner right behind. Both bundled into the backseat, and the leader ordered Five to retrieve their second vehicle, a Toyota SUV parked nearby. Their chase had gone mobile.

“There!” said the driver.

They all saw the dark blue sedan fishtailing through gravel, heard rubber squeal when its tires met asphalt. The Tahoe’s driver did well, taking a good angle across the parking lot, but they couldn’t cut him off. The Tahoe bounded onto Main Street and found its footing, but the Caddy was fast. They all watched the car round a bend and briefly disappear from sight. When they reacquired a visual, the Caddy was in the left lane passing a delivery truck.

The Tahoe’s driver tried to mirror the move, but an oncoming car caused him to brake hard. Well-trained in both offensive and defensive maneuvering, he steered onto the gravel shoulder, which was suitably wide, accelerated, and soon had the Tahoe back on the road with the truck behind them, its horn blaring. The Caddy was still in front, moving fast, its brake lights flickering on the next curve. All eyes went to the dash-mounted GPS map — the road led north, away from town, and connected to a number of secondary roads.

“Dammit!” the commander shouted.

The problem was obvious, a simple equation of weight and horsepower. The Caddy was half a mile in front and accelerating like a rocket. Unless their target kept to the speed limit — which he’d blatantly disregarded so far — they could never keep up.

“Did anybody get the plate number?”

Silence was the answer. The man who still had a Taser in his hand said weakly, “It was parked in front of us, and we have the dash cam — the head office can figure it out in time.”

When they next saw the blue car it was barely a dot, almost a mile out front. The town was falling away, the terrain going to countryside and freshly plowed fields. Another distant blink of red as the Caddy approached a curve at breakneck speed.

“Maybe he’ll do the job for us,” the driver said, only half in jest.

The car disappeared from sight around the curve.

“Call it off!” the commander ordered.

The driver pulled smoothly to the gravel and grass shoulder. For a time there was silence, only the weary rumble of the Tahoe’s overstressed V8 and the rub of shifting bodies on leather upholstery.

“What could we have done?” said the man with the Taser. “It wasn’t practical to tag all the cars in the lot with transmitters. We watched him from the minute he went in — he never went to another table, never talked to anybody.” And there it was, they all knew — in a few unconvincing sentences, the after-action report of a failed mission. “How the hell did he get the keys?”

The driver said, “I lost sight of him when he went in back. Maybe it was the cook’s car.”

They all looked at him dumbly. Fry cooks didn’t drive new top-end Cadillacs.

The commander slammed his palm against the door in frustration. “This guy is smart,” he said. “We didn’t give him enough credit.”

“And he’s lucky,” said the man with the Taser.

The commander thought about it. “Maybe … but something about this bugs me. There’s something we’re not seeing.”

The Toyota caught up and pulled smoothly into formation behind them.

“Where to?” said the Tahoe’s driver.

“Not much choice. Back to square one.”

“The field of play just got a lot bigger.”

“I know,” said the commander. “Which means we’re going to need some help.”

DeBolt didn’t let his foot off the gas for nearly ten minutes. He saw no sign of the Tahoe behind him, and after a series of turns he slowed to nearly the speed limit on an empty rural road. The car seemed to relax, acquiring a spongy ride and a more civilized tone from the engine.

He looked at the dash-mounted GPS navigation display, which showed his position on a map in bright LEDs. Feeling cocky, he tried for his own personal map, thinking, Map, present position.

Nothing happened.

He tried again, still got nothing. He input the Cadillac’s license plate number, and then concentrated intently on the menu for Roy’s Diner.

No information arrived.

On a straightaway he closed his left eye and saw the blind spot — it was every bit as empty as when he’d first noticed it. What was he doing wrong? He felt a tremor of unease, which seemed absurd — having recognized his new talent barely an hour ago, he could hardly have become reliant on it. He felt as if his mind were under attack, some kind of cognitive Pearl Harbor. DeBolt felt confused, paranoid. He checked the mirror for the hundredth time.

Ten miles later he was sure he was in the clear. All the same, his death grip on the wheel was unrelenting. He felt an overwhelming urge to get out of sight, to stop and assert control over the anarchy in his head.

He veered onto what looked like a logging road, a barely groomed dirt and gravel path, and began churning up an incline — something between a large hill and a minor mountain. When the road deteriorated and he could go no farther, DeBolt put the car in park and instinctively reached for an ignition switch that was empty of any key or electronic fob. He closed his eyes. Was there even a way to turn the car off? The gas gauge showed half a tank, but every ounce of fuel spent idling cut the distance he could put between himself and Cape Split. Where was he even going? What was the use of running without a destination in mind?

He got out of the idling car.

He’d been in the driver’s seat no more than thirty minutes, but it felt good to move and stretch. He breathed in the cool, evergreen-scented air. DeBolt left the car where it was and hiked to the top of the hill, the softly rumbling engine heavy in the background, a gasoline-driven stopwatch to remind him that time equated to distance. After a three-minute trek over God’s hardscape, hidden in the shadows of stunted pines and leafless maples, he crested the hill and looked out across a bucolic scene. The engine noise had faded, and the stillness before him was stark — surely made more so by the events of the last day. He saw a small town perhaps a mile away, a second at the base of a sister mountain in the distance.

He wondered idly what the name of the town was, and to his surprise the answer was immediately furnished:

DeBolt’s head drooped in disbelief. What the hell?

He rubbed the back of his neck and looked up at a faultless midday sky. He had the beginnings of a headache. For most people a mere annoyance, but for him … what? A concern? A system malfunction? DeBolt found himself in a new and unimaginable realm. In the Coast Guard, when he’d encountered difficult situations he had always had his training to fall back on. But how could anyone prepare for something like this?

On a hill adjacent to the town he noticed a small antennae farm. Is that the answer? he wondered. Do I need a connection of some kind, a cell tower or a Wi-Fi portal? Are there mobile circuits wired inside my head? As incredible as it sounded, DeBolt knew there had to be at least a grain of truth in the idea. Somehow he was gathering information, linking to a network. He shuddered to imagine the long-term health consequences of such a transformation. But then, “long-term” had little place in his recent thinking.

The concept was as unnerving as it was frightening. I can find out anything. But how much does anybody really want to know?

Whatever this new faculty was, whatever he was, he had to learn its functionality, understand how it operated and what limitations existed. DeBolt decided he could test the antenna theory simply enough when he began driving again. The greater question, however, remained moored in the back of his mind. “Now what?” he said to no one. “Where do I go?”

He began with the most simple of inquiries: Trey Adam DeBolt.

After a considerable delay, he saw:

DeBolt expelled a sharp breath, part laugh and part exasperation. “You can’t be serious…”

He sank to his haunches, sat back on a rocky ledge. It would be comical were it not so demoralizing. Sam the waitress, a cook named Rusty, and Dave who owned Roy’s — he could get information on anyone in the world. Anyone except himself.

He wished desperately that he could talk to Joan. She had asked him if he’d had any unusual sensations, and promised to explain everything soon. Joan had known. She understood what had been done to him. Perhaps she’d even been part of it. After considerable reflection, he realized this was where he had to begin. The best way to find out what had been done to him? Find out where Joan had worked. Find the hospital where it had begun, the place that floated through his mind like a fractured dream.

There was little to go on. He remembered everything before the accident, before the rescue mission that had killed his crew and put him on the brink. Call sign — Neptune 11. But that was where his past ended. Since that day he had known only Joan Chandler and a cottage on the shores of Maine. Now five men were hunting him. DeBolt feared those men, but — in a response he’d never before had — he hated them even more. Then something else came to mind. Words he’d seen scrawled on his medical file: META Project, Option Bravo. What did they mean?

He was desperate for answers.

But how? How do I find them?

A soft uphill gust brought the murmur of the Cadillac’s engine — the clock was running. No longer a stopwatch, but an alarm. It was time to go. Time to learn what he had become.