Demigods (17 page)

She was tempted to open her eyes to see what was causing such fear in her, yet she clenched them even tighter. She did not want to see it, and she understood that opened eyes meant the triplets.

Finally, the bell sounded again, and the doors opened, and she hastily stepped from the lift.

"You had better be there, Jonathan Mire," she whispered as she tried to push the elevator memory from her mind, and there was a long enough hallway to help with such a task.

Soon her mind cleared, and she began to focus once more, on what she now needed to do. It was the biggest event of her brief existence, and she had wished that she could have postponed it, but the circumstances dictated her responses.

Stepping into the office, she smelled the scent of his secretary, and heard her tiniest movements before she ever spoke up.

"May I help you?" she inquired of her, but Viper never needed to respond. She knew where she was going, and she could hear his soft speaking, off in the other room.

"Doctor Mire is in session," she tried to tell her to no avail. "You can't go in there."

Turning the handle, she noticed that it was locked, so she turned it harder, and broke the mechanism that kept her from him. She had no need to kick in the door for they had made her muscles better than those of ordinary humans. She was not quite like an ant, which can lift ten times its body weight, but rather half of that, which was more than enough to gain entry.

"Why did you do it to me?" she asked him with sorrow on her face, and tears sneaking out from beneath the dark shades. His look was dumbfounded as he sat there at his desk with his phone next to his ear. "Why did you have to hurt me like that?"

"Should I call security?" his secretary asked as she followed Viper into the room, but doctor Mire figured out who she was rather quickly, and motioned his secretary away.

"I'll call you right back," he said to the person on the other end of the phone, and hung up before he could have even heard their response.

"Did they send you to kill me?" he asked, seemingly not so disturbed as he should have been, had they done so. "I've often wondered since the beginning, if they would."

"They didn’t send me," she said sternly as she closed half of the distance between them. "I awoke prematurely, and I escaped."

Placing his hands on his lap, he sat up, and smiled at her. He understood how much of her he had created, and was intrigued, though quite frightened as well.

"Why did you make them torture me?" she asked as her voice trembled, and her body slightly convulsed at the thought of it, "and why did you make them rape me?"

Without thinking that she knew it, he gripped the revolver that hid beneath his desk. It was the one that he had put there after helping the government create the perfect killing machine, because he always feared that they would try to tie up his loose end. He had never figured that she would come to him in such a scenario, but he was even more frightened now. In this scenario, he was facing, eye to eye, the evil that he had done.

"Aren't we all simply just a product of our environment," he asked her as he gripped the gun tightly beneath the desk, "and should I have not given them the environment that they asked for?"

"Did you ever consider what you were really doing?" she returned as she stepped slightly forward, which caused him to draw the weapon, and fix it upon her. "Did you not know the pain that they were going to put me through?"

His hands trembled as he pointed the revolver at her, but she did not seem afraid at all. Instead, she simply stepped one step closer.

"It wasn't my fault," he pleaded. "They made me do it."

She saw that it was a convenient lie, yet she could hear every beat of his heart, and she could smell every drop of sweat that his body produced. As though that was not enough, she could also detect the quivering in his voice, along with the inconsistencies in the natural tone, which she could feel the moment that she entered the room.

"That gun is too heavy," she told him, and his hands quickly dropped down to the desk as though the gun weighed a ton, yet he began to realize what she had done.

"They needed me for the hypnotic suggestion part," he said as he began to smile, and lift the gun from the table, only to point it directly at her once more, though her response took him by surprise.

"How can you live with yourself?

As Charlie began to examine the computer, he was relieved that he was the one to do so. If it had been someone else, they might discover what he had done, but now he could easily cover his tracks.

At first, everything seemed normal, other than the fact that the security footage showed that Viper was still there, and he knew better than anyone that she most certainly was not. However, as he began to dig a bit deeper, he discovered just how talented she had become.

He soon realized that he would not have to cover up anything, for she had done a far better job of it than he ever could have, and ten minutes later, he had all the information that he needed.

"You are an amazing woman," Charlie said with a smile before printing up a page, and grabbing it on his way out the door. He knew that the colonel would be wanting to read it for himself, and he was not going to like it one bit.

As Charlie walked the hallway, he was too excited about how Viper’s computer skills had developed to even try thinking about how they might run off together. Although he was the one to provide her with such knowledge, she had developed it into something that was far beyond his own abilities.

Just as he stepped into the colonel's office, the phone rang, and the weathered soldier motioned to Charlie that it would be a moment as he answered it.

"Colonel McClure," he stated as he placed the receiver to his ear. "Make it quick."

The voice on the other end was that of a terrified woman, and he could sense her trembling uncontrollably as she spoke.

"Madame Jasmine is dead," she told him, obviously in a state of disarray, "and I don't know what to do."

"Calm down," he tried to sooth, needing more information to assess the situation. "Just tell me what happened."

"I think that it was the young, blonde woman who came to see her last night," she told him as she sobbed. "She went up there, but never came down, and the Madame’s 'do not disturb' light was on all night."

This was disturbing, as the colonel suddenly realized that the situation had gone from bad to far worse.

"Does anyone else know about it?" he asked her, and was glad to hear that she had just discovered the body, and had called him immediately.

"Leave the room, and close the door," he instructed, "and tell everyone that she has been put on an assignment out of town."

"Put lady Saffron in charge," the colonel continued, knowing well that he had to make everything seem as normal as possible, "and I’ll send some people over to clean things up."

At this, the woman seemed slightly relieved, knowing that he would take care of things, but it still did nothing to bring her boss, and her friend, back to life.

Hanging up the phone, he looked up at Charlie.

"It would seem that no one took Viper after all," the colonel stated with a tone that indicated his worry. "She's awake, and god only knows where, or what she is up to."

"I know," Charlie replied, which caused a more curious expression upon the colonel's face, "and you are not going to believe what she is capable of."

"Did you get the security footage," the colonel asked, "so we can at least see how she got out?"

"No," Charlie replied before pausing as he tried to find a way to say it that the colonel would understand. "It would seem that Viper has hidden it."

This puzzled him, for Charlie was the very best at what he did, which was why he was here in the first place.

"And why can't you find it?"

Again, Charlie tried to find the right words, but found that there was no easy way to say it.

"She programmed a secondary operating system into the computer core, in a language that doesn't even exist," he tried to explain clearly, "and she hid the files within it."

Colonel McClure sat there silently for a brief moment before asking his next question.

"Can't you just erase it?" he asked, knowing only the basics about computers, for he had grown up in an age long before they had much use to the general public.

"Even if I could, which I doubt," Charlie answered as he laid the printed piece of paper upon the large desk, "I wouldn’t recommend it."

Putting on his reading glasses, the colonel picked up the page, and began to learn of things that he could barely understand, but the ending was quite clear.

Hello, Colonel McClure. If you are reading this, then you now understand that I am no longer your captive.

I am writing you because I needed a little security policy, so that you do not hunt me down. What you have done to me was very wrong, and you should forget that I exist, or everyone in the world will know that I do.

By the time that you read this, I will have had your computer upload every piece of information within it to every free web-hosting site around the globe, and within one minute, I am able to make it all public to the entire planet, in many different languages.

I have also set up a fail-safe device. If you should shut your computer down, or attempt to disconnect from the net, it will stop sending a signal, which will immediately post all of your precious information.

In short, if you do not try to harm me any more than you already have, then I will not destroy all that you have worked for.

Placing his glasses on the table, he looked back up at Charlie.

"Do you think she's bluffing?" the colonel asked, hoping to hear that she might be, but the response that he received caused his heart to sink slightly.

"You created her to be that good, and I was able to detect the signal that she was talking about," Charlie replied as he shrugged his shoulders. "I wouldn't bet that she was."

Reluctantly, the colonel picked up the phone, and hit simply one number.

"Put the triplets on Viper," he stated before hanging it right back down.

"Go sit down somewhere," he told Charlie without ever looking up at him this time. "I'll call for you if I need you."

Before Charlie could exit the office, the colonel had one more thing to say, but this time he did look up.

"Figure it out, Dr. Hall," he stated in a way that revealed his desperation, and Charlie paused without looking back, in a way that allowed it known that he understood.

*            *            *

With her sunglasses still hiding her eyes as not to reveal that they were closed, Viper entered the office of a different motel. She needed a secondary location, and the kind gentleman that she had met at the restaurant had provided her with the means to do so. She would not actually pay for room, however, just as it had been with everything else that she needed.

"Would you like a room?" the man asked with a Hindi accent, and she smiled back at him.

"One near the front, if you've got it," she returned, hearing how his heartbeat began to race, yet noticed that he had more control than American men. "I would like to feel safe."

"We have the room open right next to the office," he replied as she began to feel his resolve breaking down. "Would that be good?"

Opening her eyes, Viper removed her shades, and allowed him to see her beautiful, light green eyes, as she tilted her head slightly, and answered his question.

"That would be perfect," she said before looking down at the card that he had set before her, and filling it out in a most anonymous way.

"It is room one," he told her as his voice began to quiver, and it broke his heart as she gently grabbed the key, and put her glasses back on, hiding such captivation. He found satisfaction, however, at the sight of her as she walked away, for her beauty was astounding from any angle.

Naturally, Viper was flattered, but had far more important things to think about.

Leaving the office she turned to her left, and the room was right there. Certainly, she did not want it for reasons regarding safety, but rather that it had a clear view of the motel sign that sat out front.

Quickly she glanced around, and knew her surroundings as though she had just taken a panoramic photograph. It was not as though it were the perfect place, but she would adapt her tactics to perfectly suit it, for this is what they had taught her to do in the horrible memories that they implanted in her. With such a way of thinking, every place was a perfect one.

Entering the room, she removed her sunglasses, and tossed them on the bed. With her eyes wide open, she looked around the room to see everything that was there, and even the tiny spider, as it peeked at her from beneath the sink at the opposite end of the room, did not go unnoticed. It felt safe, for Viper never looked directly at it, yet she never had to, for her vision was as advanced as all of her senses. For that matter, she could have spotted it on the other side of a crowded stadium.

Next, she lifted the edge of the curtain, and stared at the motel sign for a good two minutes, before she was satisfied. This, she felt, was more than enough, so she closed her eyes once more, and began her calculations.

*            *            *

The colonel sat quietly at his desk, pondering what he might do next. Rapidly his mind went in circles, always bringing him back to the understanding that there was nothing else that he could do without further information, though none was forthcoming quickly enough.

Just when he thought that he was about to go mad, Lieutenant Ramsey burst into the room.

"I have good news and bad," the lieutenant stated as he stood at attention. "Which would you like first?"

"At ease," he told him calmly as he though about it for a very short moment. "Tell me the bad news first, so it doesn't spoil the good."

"Well," Ramsey began as he relaxed his posture, and looked the colonel in the eyes, "We got news that doctor Mire committed suicide."

"That is bad news," the colonel replied with an expression of anxiousness, "though hardly worthy of a bulletin."

The lieutenant paused as he swallowed, preparing himself for the next statement.

"It happened only moments after Viper was seen leaving his office."

Okay... Now he could see why it was bad news. She was not running away at all, and she seemed to want them all dead. Who would be next, he wondered?

"Okay," he said slightly disheartened, "what is the good news?"

Before the colonel could even breathe after asking the question, the lieutenant answered it excitedly.

"The triplets have located her."

This was the best possible news that he could have heard at the moment, and perhaps this tragedy would not last as long as the Mirage incident had. His sanity depended on it.

"Get a Delta unit on it immediately," the colonel barked, yet before the lieutenant could respond, he added, "and send Doctor Hall back in here."

"Yes sir," the young man replied before hastily leaving the large office.

Colonel McClure wanted to believe that the event was nearly over, though the thought of Mirage still haunted him. Sure, her mind was much more advanced than Viper's, and Viper was simply a soldier, but she was the best soldier that the most brilliant minds could create, and no one actually knew, to what level she had evolved within the memories that they had given her. They could, after all, only implant the basics, but her own mind would fill in the blanks, and what she was able to do to their computer was a testament to that.

For that matter, he now remembered what she had said in the little letter that she left behind, but he knew now more than ever, that she had to die, despite whatever else might come of it. She had already killed two of the people involved with her creation, and he doubted that she was going to stop there. He did not believe for one instant that she would let bygones be bygones.

Just as Charlie entered the office, the phone rang once again, and once again, Charlie was motioned to hold on.

"Make it quick," he spoke into the receiver.

"I've just landed," the colonel heard the familiar voice of Captain Ryan Pierce state in a somber tone. "I'm coming in for debriefing on the Mirage incident."

"Delay that," he sternly told the captain as his mind quickly raced for a solution, knowing that Ryan would be a liability in his current state of mind. "I want you to get in your car, and take an immediate leave of absence. Go to Seattle for a couple of weeks, and that's an order."

"Understood," Ryan replied before they both hung up the phone.

Captain Pierce had just come out of a coma, and he was also one of the people involved with Viper's programming. He contributed to her firearms training, yet like most of them, had no idea of the things that she was being put through. Nonetheless, he was one of them, and in his condition was in no shape to take on the likes of Viper.

"You wanted to see me?" Charlie interrupted, for the colonel had dazed off as though not even remembering that he had entered the office.

"Yes, Charlie," he said as he looked up at him, and removed the military expression from his face. "It would seem that we are all in danger, and Viper would own you the moment you looked in her eyes, so I don't want you leaving the building until I say so."

"With such light green eyes," Charlie replied as he pictured how beautiful she was, while staring off into the distance, "I could imagine that she would."