MJ-12: Inception

11

Today was a good day, praise the Lord.

Cal Hooks got up and, for the first time in what seemed like forever, didn’t feel every bone and muscle in his tired body protest to high Heaven. That was reason enough to embrace the morning despite the winter chill of the Nevada desert before sunrise.

Plus, today he’d get to call home. The Army folks — Cal well knew they weren’t really from the Army, but the Air Force name was still pretty new — had been letting him call home once a week ever since he had signed on. And last summer, he’d been given two whole weeks to return home, though his wife and boy were worried something fierce when they saw the condition he was in. And that was after the Army folks had given him a month to recuperate from any experiments before his vacation.

He got up from his bunk and stretched. Freed from the drudgery of third-shift factory work, Cal found he was a morning person after all. He flipped on a light, noting how sure his hands looked. No trembling at all. And in the mirror, the white hair had been darkening considerably, to the point where there was only a bit more gray than when he had first started down this strange road. All good signs.

He’d come a long way since the incident at the Firestone plant. He was bouncing back better now — faster. Today, he felt maybe ninety percent back to the last time he’d clocked in at the Firestone plant. He could walk briskly and, over the past few days, had been able to participate in some of the exercises the others were doing.

Cal could heal a paper cut without much trouble at all now. He could also focus all his energy into the gravely ill — they told him he had cured a woman with cancer last spring. Hearing that made the three months he was bedridden for afterwards almost entirely tolerable.

Truth be told, though, when he used his power, he never quite bounced back all the way. The doctors had confirmed it, but he had already felt it in his bones. Each time he used his miraculous gift, a tiny little bit of his life was sacrificed.

But that was fine by him. Over the course of the past year, he’d healed dozens — dozens! — of people. The woman with cancer, a boy out in Michigan who’d been in a terrible car crash, soldiers dealing with wounds left over from the war. It was God’s work, that much he truly believed. Whatever ills he might suffer, he was helping people, helping his country. His boy was going to college. It was more than a fair trade.

Cal got himself dressed and briefly read from his Bible before heading over to the mess hall for breakfast. He never quite thought of himself as an overly God-fearing man — the way he grew up, it was simply part of what he did and who he was — but there was more than enough swearing and other sorts of… behaviors… on the base that he felt a little brushing up on the Word was in order. Today, it was Ephesians. Tomorrow, maybe a Gospel passage.

The sun was still hiding behind the mountains as Cal walked down the dusty paths between buildings. He looked off through the chain link fence, toward the bigger base in the distance. Miss Dubinsky had gotten her hands on those binoculars, and sure enough, there was a lot of activity there, just like they thought. Lots of men in lab coats, more Army folks, some offices, and some big electrical generators. Planes buzzed in and out of the base almost daily.

It was a busy place, Area 51. Cal might not have been educated, but a man could see around himself just fine without a college degree. Whatever else was happening there seemed to be very important.

Cal entered the mess hall and nodded genially at those having an early meal. He usually sat with the other Variants, but at breakfast, he typically sat alone: mornings were for thinking, not talking. So, after he got his eggs and bacon, he was surprised when Frank Lodge plopped his tray down across from him and took a seat.

“Morning, Cal.”

“Good morning, Frank. What’s got you up so early?”

Frank ran a hand across his face and gave a small smile. “They flew me out to Las Vegas overnight. Bad construction accident; one of the workers was in critical and wasn’t going to make it. So, they brought me in.”

Cal nodded somberly. “You get there in time?”

“Barely. Mexican fella. Came up here to work, maybe bring his family over. Sad, really.” Frank stared down into his black coffee.

“Well, you were there for him,” Cal said, hoping it might comfort the young man. “I wish I could heal everyone, I truly do, but I know it’d probably kill me inside a week. You, though, you have a gift to preserve the memory of those gone home to God. I think that’s a beautiful thing, Frank.”

“Yeah, well, I don’t know how many more I can do, either,” Frank said. “It’s not the toll, really. If anything, feels like I’m getting used to it a bit too much, you know? It’s like the surgeons would all tell me back during the war — you see so many die, you get numb. No, it’s more about feeling… full. I feel like I’ve got so many people in my head, and it’s sometimes hard to sort them out. It’s scary.”

Cal nodded with sympathy, though he really couldn’t relate, and he doubted anyone but Frank would ever know exactly what he was going through. He thought about asking him if he wanted to sit a moment and pray, but Frank didn’t strike him as a prayerful sort. Besides, he didn’t want to push anything on the man. Especially now. “What do the doctors say about it?”

Frank shrugged and took a swig of coffee. “The usual bunch of mental exercises, memory games, meditation, that sort of thing. They’re focused more on the skills I can get or the stuff I can learn. ‘Operational Asset Accumulation,’ they call it. Doesn’t sound so bad when you say it like that, huh?”

“Did you get any of that from this boy last night?” Cal asked.

“Well, if the Commies decide to recruit a bunch of villagers up in the mountains in the middle of nowhere, Mexico, I can speak Spanish and Nahuatl now,” Frank replied with a little grin. “Other than that, not really.”

“So, what are you trying to keep in mind, then?”

“Memories, I guess. Who these people were,” Frank said. “It seems like… I don’t know. It seems important somehow. Don’t know why yet, just a feeling in my gut, you know? I know I should just aim for the operational stuff — the languages or the skills. Medicine or science, stuff like that. But I’m telling you, Cal, I can’t shake the feeling that keeping the memories of these people is important.”

“It’s the right thing to do,” Cal agreed. “I think it’s God’s burden for you, for this gift, to be the caretaker of these memories — just like it’s my burden to bear the wounds I heal.”

Frank raised an eyebrow. “You really do believe this is a miracle, don’t you.”

Cal gave a broad smile. It wasn’t the first time someone had been skeptical of his faith. “Frank, every day you and I wake up is a miracle. Some miracles are just bigger than others.”

Just then, another of their number — the boy from Alabama, Ellis Longstreet — sat down at the table with a hello that Cal knew was only meant for one of them.

“Well, figure I better be getting on,” Cal said, rising to excuse himself.

Frank gave him an apologetic smile, and Cal shook his head slightly to let him know it was all right. He didn’t have any issue with Frank, or with Miss Maggie (he could not, in good conscience, call the young woman just “Maggie”), but he knew that look of Ellis’s very well indeed. The Alabaman hadn’t spoken a single kind word to Cal since they all arrived, and pointedly excluded him from conversation.

He knew boys like Ellis. They’d never change, and even if one in a hundred might, it wasn’t worth the effort. The MAJESTIC people saw Cal’s worth, and Frank and Miss Maggie did too. That was more than enough motivation to simply keep his head down and stay away from trouble.

Cal walked back to his quarters, taking stock of the base as it awoke from its slumber. A half-dozen military folk were out running in formation, doing push-ups, that sort of thing. In his prime — well, even a year before — Cal could keep up with them reasonably well. Now his doctors were telling him to take it easy, but he was feeling fine this day and promised himself to do his best in whatever training they had cooked up for him.

“Sir? You’re not allowed out of this area.”

Cal looked up in surprise to see he’d wandered a bit off track. Before him were two MPs, and beyond that, the gate that led out of the fenced-in area toward that massive building where all the scientists went every day. The “mystery hangar,” as Miss Maggie called it.

“Sorry ’bout that,” Cal said with a friendly grin. “Mind wandered, feet followed.”

One of the two guards gave him a smile back. “No problem, Mr. Hooks.”

Cal nodded and turned back toward his cabin to get changed into his Army-issue exercise get-up. Nice boy, that guard. Cal had lived in Tennessee all his life, but he was beginning to think the rest of these United States were a far sight friendlier than the South, especially to an old black man such as himself. Maybe he’d move his family north after retirement. Snowy weather beat disrespect any day.

Thoughts of cold climates and kind folks followed Cal to morning exercises. One of his doctors asked him whether he was up for it, but he said he’d simply do his best. Frank, Ellis, and Miss Maggie were all younger than Cal by at least a couple decades, after all — but he’d still try to keep up. Another thing Cal found in living with respectful people was that he had a bit of self-pride after all. He just hoped the Lord would help him keep it in check.

“All right, people,” Captain Anderson said as the Variants arrived and lined up — sullenly, in the case of Mr. Longstreet and Miss Maggie, Cal noticed. “Today, we got a special treat for you. You’re going to go through the official Marine Corps obstacle course, which we had flown in all the way from California for you lucky ducks. And you’ll be real lucky if one of you makes it through without quitting.”

Cal had no illusions about where he stood on that count, though he was heartened by the fact that Anderson hadn’t automatically excluded him. As for the others, Ellis looked put out as usual, while Frank simply nodded — Cal’s money was on Frank. But Miss Maggie had a little glint in her eye now, and that girl kept up with most everything they threw at her. Couldn’t count her out, either.

They were all given combat boots, heavy packs, helmets, and dummy weapons, then marched out of their little fenced-in area, in the growing heat of the desert, toward an elaborate set of obstacles set up about fifty yards off. There was mud and barbed wire, ropes and walls, tires and Lord knows what else. At least a half-dozen Air Force MPs stood on either side, some of them armed — more obstacles, maybe, or just there to yell at them. Military boys did a lot of yelling.

“To make this a little easier on you, we’re gonna go in order, based on the aptitude you’ve shown so far. Lodge, you’re on point. Miss Dubinsky, you get to go next. Longstreet, you’ll go right after her and see if you can catch up to a girl. And Mr. Hooks, how you feeling?”

“I’m right to give it a try,” Cal replied.

“Well, your doctors agree for once, so you’ll bring up the rear. But if you feel anything at all, you’re under orders to stop at once. Ain’t no shame in it.”

“Yes, sir,” Cal said. “Like I say, I’ll give it a try.”

Anderson nodded. “All right, then. Lodge, you’re up.”

Frank nodded and started jogging toward the course. It wasn’t long after that the first shots were fired by the soldiers on either side, and Cal watched Frank dive to the ground. From there, he began slogging through the mud on his stomach, barbed wire over his head and soldiers firing guns just a few inches above that.

“Are those real guns?” Ellis asked, eying the course nervously, then looking pointedly at Cal and Maggie.

“Yes, Longstreet, the guns are very real,” Anderson said.

“You seriously going to make me do this?” Ellis asked, his eyes drawn to the weapon flashes before flickering back to Cal. Something was on Ellis’s mind, Cal could tell. He was more nervous today for some reason, but then, Cal wasn’t too keen on the gunfire either.

Anderson walked over with all the menace a Marine officer could muster, which was considerable. “Longstreet, I am thoroughly and completely in charge here. If I tell you it’s Easter, you’ll goddamn hide eggs until I tell you to stop. Understood?” Ellis grew pale under Anderson’s withering gaze until the latter man broke it off and turned to Maggie. “Miss Dubinsky, whenever you’re ready.”

Maggie gave the Marine a grim nod and jogged off toward the course, hitting the ground where Frank had and crawling forward under a hail of fire. It was obvious that she seemed to find it easier to navigate that first section than Frank — she was smaller, after all.

“Don’t worry, Mr. Longstreet,” Cal said. “Ain’t gonna use real bullets on us. They didn’t bring us all the way here to put us in danger like that.”

“Didn’t ask you your opinion,” Ellis said under his breath, just loud enough for Cal to hear, then dashed off toward the course without even waiting for Anderson’s signal.

“Your turn, Mr. Hooks,” Anderson called out.

Cal took a breath, shook his arms out, and began a slow jog toward the course. Frank was already through the mud and over the first wall, while Maggie was just finishing up the muddy part. Ellis was floundering through a bit — he’d followed the trail Frank and Maggie had forged, and there wasn’t much left to push off of.

But there was plenty of fresh mud elsewhere on the course, Cal thought. Don’t have to follow in a straight line, do I?

Cal heard gunfire off to his left and half-knelt, half-dove for the ground, his knees protesting a little. But once he was down, he found the elbows-and-feet crawl to be pretty intuitive, and since he chose a different path through the mud, he was able to make decent time under the barbed wire.

Once out of the mud, Cal rose to his feet as quick as he could and jogged over to the first wall — a wooden panel about fifteen feet high, with handholds scattered around it. He couldn’t see Frank or Maggie anymore, but Ellis was struggling up one side — again, following exactly where the other two went, using the same handholds now covered in slippery mud.

Cal tromped his feet on the ground to shake off the mud and ran his hands over the top of his helmet — probably the only part of him not dirty now. Then he went over to another part of the wall and started climbing.

“Don’t go the same way they did,” he yelled over at Ellis, who was trying without success to gain a muddy foothold near the top. “Pick the spots that ain’t been used yet.”

Ellis grunted something Cal couldn’t hear in reply, but there was something in Ellis’s eye that Cal knew wasn’t very friendly. Ellis was sweating profusely, there were rings under his eyes, and he looked like a particularly volatile stew of scared and angry. But in all honesty, there wasn’t much Cal could do about that, so he began his ascent with a shrug. Think what he gonna think, say what he gonna say. No helping it.

One foothold, then a hand, then another foot, another hand. One at a time. Just keep on. Cal’s knees and shoulders were barking a bit more, but he really wanted to get over the wall. He saw Ellis finally flop over the other side. If that soft boy can do it…

Cal reached up for the next handhold — and felt it implode in his right hand. Sharp pain sliced into his palm.

He shouted in surprise and drew his hand back to find pieces of glass sticking out of it. Then the foothold beneath him gave way. Awkwardly, his weight pressed his body against the wall itself — which groaned almost imperceptibly, cracked, and shattered.

Cal fell forward onto a bed of broken glass, large shards cutting deep into his arm, his side, his leg as he hit the ground hard.

The pain was something awful; it felt like being pierced by a million needles. He could feel the blood flowing out of him onto the glass and sand. He squeezed his eyes shut to help him get over the first waves of agony — then opened them to find Ellis standing over him.

“Don’t you ever tell me what to do again, you stupid nigger,” Ellis whispered, his eyes wide and angry. He then turned toward the soldiers alongside the course and started waving his arms wildly to draw their attention. “Man down! We need a medic quick!”

“You… you son of a bitch,” Cal groaned quietly. “You did this.”

“Oh, my God, I’m so sorry, Mr. Hooks!” Ellis screamed loudly. “I don’t know what happened — I couldn’t control it. Medic!”

Pain lanced through Cal in bursts, and every time he so much as moved, the glass shards only sank into him deeper. But more than that, there was anger, a mounting, righteous fury coursing through his veins, rising as Cal swore under his breath he’d never let any man — black or white or goddamn polka-dotted — do something like this to him again. The pain and the rage bubbled over and before he knew what he was doing, he’d reached out…

… and grabbed Ellis’s ankle.

Ellis looked down in surprise and cried out.

“What are y—”

Suddenly, before Cal’s eyes, Ellis’s hair turned pure white. His cheeks sagged. His skin grew dry and hung loose off his bones. Lines appeared around his eyes, blossoming across his face into wrinkles.

A sudden burst of sensation rippled through Cal’s body, giving him the strength to stand.

He let go of Ellis’s ankle and hauled himself to his feet, shaking his injured hand — and watching in amazement as the glass fell away from his wounds — which were closing.

Cal then turned to Ellis, who collapsed into his arms just as the soldiers and medics arrived. He looked down at the Southerner and saw he was a man of eighty now, if a day.

And Cal… well, Cal hadn’t felt this good in thirty years.

Then he remembered the Bible verse he’d read that very morning: “In your anger do not sin. Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry, and do not give the devil a foothold.”

Cal began to shudder and found himself holding back tears. “Damn you, Mr. Longstreet. You just stay still now.”

With that, Cal placed his hand on Ellis’s forehead and prayed — prayed like he’d never prayed before in his life.