MJ-12: Inception

27

Maggie looked around at her new place with an actual stirring of pride. It was a nice little apartment about three blocks from the “office” — CIA headquarters in Foggy Bottom — a second-floor flat with a separate bedroom and its own bathroom. A real nice one, as far as places went. Far better than the room she had rented with a family in Mill Valley. Nicer than the place she grew up, in fact. Heck, it even came with furniture and a brand-new radio.

The pride waned a bit as she thought about how she’d gotten there, though. It wasn’t because she was good at anything she’d worked for. She’d had this thing thrown at her, completely at random, and because of that, she was being treated well. It wasn’t really hers. And she was damn sure they’d take it away if she stopped playing ball. Or at least stop covering the rent.

Maggie’d only be there part of the time, anyway. Danny was talking about going back to Area 51 again for “integration training.” There were other Variants, he’d said, and they needed to see how best to put together teams for various missions. So, it looked like everyone would be thrown in a pot and mixed around to see how well they complemented one another. Maggie couldn’t help but wonder just how many there were and what they could do. Would their powers be better than hers? More effective?

She smirked to herself a little as she got up from her new sofa and grabbed her purse. She was, without a doubt, the most effective Variant on her little team. Cal could kill a man, but he needed to touch him. Frank was becoming an expert in pretty much everything, but he was still constrained by… well, normalcy. But Maggie, she could stop a dozen men in their tracks and reduce them to trembling, bawling balls of nothing. They needed her, and she’d make damn sure they knew it.

With a spring in her step, she locked up her place — and it would be hers, one way or another, for the foreseeable future — and left her little brownstone. She’d noticed an out-of-the-way bar a couple blocks away, and she figured nobody would mind if she went for a drink.

Besides, as she walked, she kept watch on the man in the bad suit who’d been tailing her for the past several days — the same one who’d dropped the note at the Capital before they shipped out to Prague. She hadn’t reported him yet. And maybe she wouldn’t.

Maggie walked in and took a table in the corner, facing the door. The man entered a few minutes later, looking around casually. When his eyes met hers, she sent him a little friendly nudge and smiled at him. To his credit, he looked away and made for the bar. So, she nudged harder… and harder… until he eventually approached the table with two drinks in his hand.

“Hi, there,” he said, his Chicago accent coming through cleanly once more. “Thought you could use a drink.”

She took the drink and smiled her best fake smile.

“How kind of you. Now… tell me everything.”

Cal rode the bus in silence, his head against the window, eyes closed. He was hale and healthy now, roughly the same age as when this whole business had begun. The energy he’d taken from that girl — so much energy, it was scary — sloughed off quicker than normal, probably because she was a Variant like him. Over the last couple weeks, he’d reverted to normal, and despite Danny asking if he wanted to take on some cattle or pigs and remain young, he’d opted against it. His wife and his son had just moved into a modest home in Washington’s Adams Morgan neighborhood — he kept having to remind himself that he had a whole other life outside of the MAJESTIC-12 program, and he wanted to keep the two as separate as possible.

He considered, not for the first time, whether he would have to watch his wife pass on someday. If he wanted to, could he remain young for… well, how long? Forever? Would that be a blessing or just delaying the Lord’s Judgment? And how many lives would it take? Sure, he could stick to cows and pigs and goats — he could see himself running a farm up North somewhere, really — but was that right?

Too many questions. Danny had provided Cal with head-shrinkers and reverends — there was one preacher who was a particularly good listener, though Cal had to be careful what he said, of course — but ultimately, it always came back around to doing what he felt was right. And there was nothing in the Good Book, or any book really, that laid a clear path for him under these unusual circumstances.

“Get up.”

Cal opened his eyes and looked up to see a middle-aged white man in a bad suit, looking down at him with tired disdain, standing expectantly with a newspaper tucked under his arm, a briefcase in his hand.

“Excuse me?”

The man looked confused. “Get up. You’re taking up a seat.”

Cal made to move… then stopped. He worked hard — twice as hard — as anyone. He’d spent the day at Foggy Bottom in meetings and doing training and intelligence meetings — the reports were slow going, but his reading was getting better after all this time. He would continue to work twice as hard to be just as good.

But he was beginning to hate that phrase, handed down through generations of his family. He did a lot for his country. Put his life on the line out there. This arrogant white man in the bad suit had no idea.

Cal deserved to sit as much as anyone.

Cal looked up and gave the man a small smile. “Sorry, this seat’s taken.”

Dr. Kurt Schreiber was, for the first time ever, alone and unsupervised at Area 51. He had waited for this moment for months — years! — building up trust by working diligently and agreeing to everything his “superiors” requested and demanded.

Superiors… a laughable term. Politicians and soldiers, and that odd junior man who seemed utterly unfit to lead a project such as MAJESTIC-12. Schreiber had to admit that Commander Wallace was competent and unusually perceptive. But overmatched nonetheless.

Schreiber pulled a key from his pocket and left his office, walking down the hallway and out of the building toward the main laboratory — one of the most secure facilities in the world, and one to which he had nearly unfettered access. The key, in fact, represented the very last fetter, and now, late at night with naught but pimple-faced guards pulling the worst duty, he would put it to use.

Showing his ID to the bored guard, Schreiber entered the secure building, barely giving the anomaly he had studied for years any regard. Because the building was indeed so well guarded, the “superiors” at Area 51 had decided to keep all kinds of treasures in there, some of which he barely understood.

Schreiber opened a side door, walked down a set of stairs to the basement, and proceeded down a very long, dark hallway, opting to leave the lights off, just in case. When he came to a heavy, reinforced metal door, he worked the key and opened it.

Inside, POSEIDON lay unconscious. Schreiber felt an unusual pang of sympathy for the Russian. When he was not being tested, he was kept in a room far from anything he could use his Enhancement upon. All his furniture was bolted to the floor. Everything within two hundred yards, in fact, was bolted to the floor.

“Wake up,” Schreiber said in Russian.

The man stirred. “It is too late for more experiments,” he mumbled. “For God’s sake, let me sleep.”

“I am not here to experiment. I am here to talk about your future, should you choose to have one.”

POSEIDON sat up and saw Schreiber smiling in the dim light. “What do you mean?”

“Soon, comrade, I believe it will be time for you to illustrate what you can really do. And I will help you.”

The man looked confused. “Why should I even listen to you? You are a Nazi.”

“The Nazis no longer exist, comrade,” Schreiber said. “Hitler was wrong. The Aryans were not the master race after all.”

Jim Forrestal tucked into his steak with relish. It’d been another long week, but a successful one. Success in politics was often measured in inches — a good conversation here, a couple tidbits of information there. Pushing the agenda forward, one tiny step at a time, and doing everything possible to make America safe once more.

“Are you sure about your source, Jim?” his dining companion said. “Are they trustworthy?”

Forrestal smiled. “They may be different than us. They may not even be human anymore. But some of them, at least, still see themselves as patriotic Americans. And most of them are scared.”

The other man, a large, slightly pudgy fellow with a fine suit and piercing eyes, grimaced nonetheless. “Not human… what are they, then?”

“They were human, don’t forget that,” Forrestal said between bites. “I don’t know what they are now. But the most important thing is that we contain them before we use them. We’re not doing that. That goddamn Hilly has ’em set up in apartments and houses, for God’s sake! Might as well leave your wallet in the middle of the National Mall for someone to take.”

The other man shook his head. “They’re not a wallet, Jim. From what you’re telling me, they’re dangerous. They’re a time bomb. They’re more than human now. And they’ll be even more dangerous once they start realizing that.”

“Exactly, Joe. They don’t have oversight. They aren’t contained. Technically, they’re citizens, but both Hilly and Truman want to keep treating them like normal people. They aren’t.” Forrestal paused for a swig of wine, a fine Bordeaux from the cellars of Washington’s storied Old Ebbitt Grill, where the two men sat ensconced in comfort and luxury. “I’m glad you’re on the same page here.”

Senator Joseph McCarthy, freshman Republican from Wisconsin, nodded. “These whaddyacallits, Variants… it sounds to me like they’re the biggest threat to the United States other than the Reds. What do you need from me, Jim?”

Forrestal smiled. “It’s not an overnight thing. MAJESTIC-12 is too entrenched right now. But when Truman loses to Dewey — and he will, I’ll promise you that — then it’s going to fall to Congress to start pushing hard. And I know you, Joe. You know how to push.”

McCarthy offered up a grim smile as he finally unfolded his napkin and looked over his plate. “I know how to push. Don’t worry about that.”

The room was very much as Frank remembered it — and unfortunately, try as he might, he remembered it very well indeed.

Deep below the streets of East Berlin, the room was well preserved, despite the demolition of the old Reich Chancellery above. The access tunnels and secret doors were preserved, then apparently forgotten by the Soviet occupiers once they cleaned the place out.

And they had cleaned it out pretty damn well. The stone walls and dirt floor were all that remained, and even the floor looked somehow swept clean — Frank figured the Russians would leave no stone unturned. They certainly took the table and all the machinery.

And, of course, they took the anomaly.

Frank turned to Danny and shrugged. “Told you. The Reds saved my bacon here. Figured they’d take it all.”

Danny smiled back, while Captain Anderson kept his eyes on the exit. “They didn’t count on us, now, did they? Zippy?”

Behind them, a small, thin young woman — no older than twenty, Frank guessed — nodded grimly. “There are things they couldn’t take,” she said, a light Boston accent creeping in. “Nobody can take the past.”

Zipporah Silverman walked forward into the immensity of the room, stopping to crouch down almost exactly where Frank remembered that the anomaly appeared. She moved her long, dark hair from her face and placed her hands on the floor.

“What are you calling this again?” Frank asked.

“Psychokinesis,” Danny replied quietly.

“Fancy.”

“Better than the long explanation.”

Frank had gotten that explanation on the flight over, the three agents tucked in a cargo plane full of food and fuel for West Berlin’s trapped residents. The Reds put up a land blockade of West Berlin in order to — well, whatever they thought they could get away with, Frank supposed. But the Air Force and the Brits had put together a massive airlift, daily flights to West Berlin that would probably last until the Reds gave up — because Frank knew the Americans were more stubborn than the Russians would ever be.

It would likely take a long, long time, though. For now, another stalemate. This Cold War was turning out to be a corker.

From the airfield, Danny led them through West Berlin, and they used forged passports to enter the Soviet sector of the city. That part had been easy enough — getting back would be tougher, no doubt.

Zippy — the nickname belied the girl’s too-serious demeanor — crouch-walked forward, her fingertips still brushing the ground. “They were here… for months. After the city fell, this was their new headquarters. They… they didn’t think their experiments would work. I see one man, a thin man, widow’s peak, angry… he’s telling someone they would need… experimental subjects.”

Frank’s eyes widened. “Me and Mike Petersen,” he breathed. “We were handy.”

Danny put a hand on Frank’s shoulder. “Sorry.”

Zippy finally stood and turned toward them. “That’s it. Everything else is a blur. There was too much activity here to get a better read on it. But I don’t think there were any other Variants created here. Just Frank.”

“All this just to hear that?” Anderson groused.

“Not entirely,” Frank said. And with that, he raised a pistol at Anderson from just five feet away.

“What the hell, Lodge?” the Marine demanded before turning to Danny. “Commander, tell this man to stand down!”

“I can’t do that, Andy,” Danny said sadly. “And you know why.”

“Commander?” Panic flashed briefly behind Anderson’s eyes. He made to reach for his gun, only to find Zippy was already busy relieving him of it.

Frank cocked his pistol. “You see, Captain, I got in Yushchenko’s head as he died, and he knew a lot of things. A lot of things. Like how Area 51 had been compromised. How someone was passing him intel from deep inside the base.”

Anderson straightened up. “There’s a leak? Is Silverman here even cleared for this?”

“Cut it out!” Danny shouted, drawing his own gun and leveling it at Anderson. “What happened, Andy? What made you turn on your country? Your friends?”

Looking from one face to another, Anderson finally caved. “Look, Danny. I’m sorry, but these Variants, these things you want to keep on a leash, they’re dangerous! My contact knew that. They told me the Russians, they were keeping them locked down. I didn’t know they were gonna use them just like us, I swear!”

“You betrayed us,” Danny said coldly. “Not just the Variants. Your country. You’ve seen the reports — the Russian Variants want to take over. And your intel walked Frank and the rest of them into a trap. You helped kill Ellis Longstreet.”

Tears started falling from Anderson’s eyes. “Look, it wasn’t supposed to happen that way! If I knew the Variants over there were making a play, I wouldn’t have done it!”

Frank stepped forward so that the gun was inches from Anderson’s chest. “Sure, you were saving the human race — and lining your pockets, too.”

Anderson fell to his knees, his hands up. “Yeah, all right, I’m sorry. I got into debt after the war. Gambling, drinking… it was hard, doing the things I did for the OSS. So, I reached out to some Reds I worked with in Hungary during the war. They set it up.”

“And when Longstreet escaped?” Frank prompted.

“Yeah, OK, OK. I did it. I let him go. I called my contact in Vegas,” Anderson said, the words tumbling out rapid-fire. “They were gonna pick him up, smuggle him over to Russia. And yeah, when we captured one of them, I took charge of security, made sure he wasn’t talking to anyone. Kept that damn woman away from him. The others, too. Those Variants, Danny, we have to keep everyone safe from them! These people, they’re dangerous!”

At this, Danny smiled. “People like me, Andy?”

It took a moment for the words to register. “You… you’re one of them too?”

“You’re not really cleared for that,” Danny replied, then turned to Frank. “Well?”

“Time to make the hard choice, I guess.” Frank said.

Danny fired two rounds into Anderson’s chest.

“Jesus, Danny,” Frank breathed, lowering his weapon. “I thought…”

His hands trembling, Danny thumbed the safety back on his pistol and gingerly put it back in his pocket. “Needed to happen, Frank,” Danny said quietly. “Get moving. We need whatever he knows.”

Frank knelt down next to Anderson and started whispering to him while Zippy stood by, her hands over her mouth, her eyes wide. “Sir, what are we going to do with his body?” she asked after a moment.

Danny looked down at his hands and wished they’d stop shaking. “Leave him here. Let the Russians find him. It… sends a message.”

“What message?” Zippy asked, incredulously.

Danny finally just jammed his hands in his pockets. “Whatever they want to believe. They’ve kept us guessing. Time to return the favor.”