John Lynch preferred working at night.  The curtain of darkness and the silence kept him focused and gave him a sense of security.  Perhaps it was the breeding of a spy that had put him in this space.  Or perhaps this hard-wired comfort is what led him to the life of covert ops.  However more than likely, it was a combination of both.

    Lynch’s room was devoured by the night, the ebbs of darkness clinging to each of the white walls, painting them solid black.  The floors were swept with the kiss of that same darkness.  The bright SVGA screen of his laptop was the only radiance at all, drenching his Irish pink face with a blue hue.  His fingers thudded across the plastic keys    like a drum machine threatening to explode.  The electronic tick of his cybernetic eye gave it a constant bass line to attach to, even if that wasn’t the intent or purpose of this symphony.

    It was hard to believe it had been only days, since Carver’s cationic body had been retrieved by TAO.   Also taken was the alien artifact that through a twist of fate had implanted in the agent’s spinal column during a mission in South America.   The artifact gave the former Sleeper agent super human abilities, but at the cost of threatening his own humanity.  Agent Carver never asked for the powers, and never wanted to be Post-Human.  His entire career as the ‘Conductor’ was to go back to a normal life, to get the alien artifact removed from his body.  He went through hell to have that space battery removed.  Witnessed the deaths of almost everyone he ever cared about.  Many times Lynch wondered if it would have been better to have just killed his protégé.

    The Director of I/O’s act of compassion (something that Lynch would outright deny), was the cause of the current situation.  A situation that was equal parts revenge, and megalomania; and if Lynch didn’t put all the pieces together, he would be looking at the sort of international disaster that I/O was designed to stop.

    The screen in front of the Director, were reports he had read countless times already.  All the information he had been able to accumulate in the few days, he had been chasing TAO and Carver.  He had reread all of it so many times he could recite it all by heart.  But perhaps he missed some vital clue, or there was some trail they never investigated.   Too many lives had already been taken, and many more were at risk.  If only he had a little more time, a little more resources.  Instead all he had to go on was a handful of reports, and prayer.

    Lynch’s focus suddenly shattered like broken glass as a small window flashed into the top right corner of his screen.  His head shifted as both of his eyes turned their focus on clean shaved scalped matched with a long moustache marred with a bloody bandage over one of his eyes.

    Tsu looked ghastly.  His usually tanned face had faded to the colour of a corpse.  Even his Asian pigmentation did little to level the pale bloodless expression that stared back at Lynch.

    --Director Lynch, Sir Agent Tsu here. --

    “Goddamn Tsu, what the hell happened?”  Lynch asked, bringing his hand to his almost orange looking hair in the blue lighting.

    --We discovered the enemy sir; well more precisely they discovered us.  They were expecting us. --

    “Walked right into another one of TAO’s traps,” Lynch sighed as his human eye narrowed two sizes smaller.  “A good thing it was your team they ran into, you did well to survive.”

    --Well sir, despite my obvious injuries,” he said his chubby fingers brushing against the blood stained bandages that clogged his right eye, “and the causalities we sustained, it could have gone much worse.  We did manage to apprehend one of the prodigals. --

    Lynch leaned in closer to the screen. “Which one, the female?” he spoke, hoping that he could personally make that bitch pay for the way she killed Bryan Hertz.

    “No sir, she was not present. We were hit by the one called Bear, and another one… we apprehended the other one sir.  He was called Emit by Bear, and apparently has the powers of a… porcupine.”  There was a tensing in Tsu’s jaw as he delivered the last bit of information, as though he was trying his best not to laugh.

    “And how do we know this one is a prodigal?”  Lynch asked

    --Well he does appear to be American, and was working with Bear so I only assumed…--

    “We will figure it out, Agent.   So what information have you secured?”

    --The enemy came through some conjoined tunnels underground.  I have requested Intel from Psi-tech but so far they haven’t been able to find any schematics for it.  They look old, if I was to wager a guess, I’d say early Soviet era. --  

    Lynch paused as his mind went over what Tsu had said.  Underground would make a lot of sense, he couldn’t help but think.  There were tons of underground bunkers all over Eastern Europe that were not marked on any map, currently in circulation.  It would make strategic sense, if one were not looking to not be found.  He should have thought of that initially.  “Thank you, Tsu,” he said.  “Outstanding work agent, we will send a transport for the prodigal, and have a full debriefing after you get back here and have a full medical diagnosis.”

    --Yes sir, -- Tsu said, and the screen disappeared from Lynch’s computer monitor.  He shook his head.  He knew he should have been happy that they tagged one of TAO’s men and had the first real break on the location since they started this goose chase, but he was never one to count anything before he knew what those elements might be.  But he hoped to god that he did not have one of his best agents permanently handicapped for something that turned out to be of no value.    But that was the nature of the game-- hundreds of dead ends for one bit of valuable data.




#5



“Tomorrow is Today”
Jae Lizhini

The musty smell of wet concrete and stale air rifted through the dark rusted bars of a concrete cell.  The decades old cell was dimly lit.  Only the pale florescent bulbs that hung naked from the ceiling gave off any shadow.   The yellow rays didn’t quite penetrate the darkness, only added texture to the hearth air.  Holden Carver sat on rough wooden plank that was the socialists’ interpretation of the wooden bench.  Carver assumed it wasn’t for his comfort but to allow Tao to lean over him and feel like a big man.  This was despite the fact the agent was cocooned in thick strains of metal chains, and bits of thick titanium metal that formed shackles around his wrists and ankles; each piece of metal covering his flesh were fitted with huge spikes injected into his skin.

Carver’s body looked badly beaten, with huge gashes of wet flesh hanging from his chest and his shoulders-- his face was colored with the purple of healing bruises.  Despite his accelerated healing his wounds and damage were as apparent as ever, not because his body wasn’t healing but because it was made aware that the pain infliction was not stopping any time soon.  It didn’t bother Carver that much; it wasn’t as though he could feel it.  Well, not yet.

TAO gripped Carver’s square jaw in his slender fingers, holding tightly to the slippery skin, abashed in sweat and the muck of being in an old cell.  Carver looked dimly into the psychopath’s cold eyes.  There was no anger in Carver’s gaze.  He had gone past that.  It was now just sheer boredom.  Or so it looked.  “Still playing the hard edged spy?”  TAO asked, his thin lips never sitting on another.  “Well it doesn’t matter how you play it.  A lot of people are going to die.  How you deal with that, is entirely up to you.  It’s just pay back.  It isn’t like I’m going to kill you.  Well unless the artifact does in the releasing of that much pain.  But I’m going to assume that you will be walking away from this.  But I really doubt Lynch will welcome you back with open arms.”

“Golly, TAO you are such a nice guy.”  Carver spat from his clenched mouth. 

TAO shook his head and released his grip from Carver’s chin.  He bent his lanky body over his hands sliding to his knees, his palms resting on the black cotton of his dress slacks.  Strands of his brown bangs fell over his brows as his eyes stared into Carver’s bloodshot ones.  “He’s going to kill you, you know.    Once this goes off John Lynch will not want a repeat performance.  Actually, if he had it his way you’d already have a bullet in your brain.  You’re too much of a liability.  And I doubt he’d even lose sleep over it.”

“Thank you Captain Obvious, I feel like joining a psychopath in world domination now.”  Carver grunted.

“You can deny it all you want Carver, but when you were in the belly of the beast, it felt right.  You weren’t playing a part.  You were one of us.  For the first time in your life you weren’t living in Lynch’s Shadow.  You were your own man.”

“I am my own man, now.  I am no longer an agent of I/O, and I am no longer your prodigal.  And when I get out of this, be it a bullet through my head, or a bullet through your head, I will still fucking hate you, and still fucking hate Lynch, for all the pissing contests you two have put me through.”

“Always a way with words,” TAO said a razor thin smile deliciously cutting across his mouth.  “So if I told you Bryan Hertz was killed last night, you would feel vindicated.  You know with all the pissing contests and all.”

Carver felt his teeth clench, his eyes never wavering from the gaze with TAO.  It was all mind games.  TAO wasn’t lying and he knew the background between Hertz and Carver’s father.   The aging soldier had been pretty much his uncle, his father’s squad mate in the Marines and a lifelong friend.  Hertz was family, and though Carver hadn’t seen the man in years, it still hit like a dagger.  Another cherished life put out by the insane tug of war.  Carver only shook his head.  “What happened to the porcupine guy, what was his name Emit, or something?  I haven’t seen his annoying ass in a bit.”

TAO brought his index finger to his head’s temple and tapped it a few times.  “Oh Holden, how you amuse me, you really can’t match wits with me.  You got lucky once, and that artifact does stop my abilities from affecting you.  But even man to man, you haven’t a prayer.  You know this; you know I don’t give a flying fuck about anyone but myself.  It’s the gift of being a heartless bastard.”

“You are a psychopathic fuck, TAO but your arrogance does get wounded so easily.  Do my words cause your cock to shrink just a little bit?”  Carver said in his same relaxed tone.

“FUCK YOU!”  TAO shouted as he lunged forward.  His small left hand moved in a blur gripping the handle of a military combat knife.  His thin arm slammed the blade into Carver’s shoulder.  The metal blade sunk to the hilt, the metal catching his shoulder blade in a fierce vibration.  “This game is fun, the way you like to aggravate,” he said, drips of blood across the villain’s gloved hand.  “Yes, Emit has been secured by I/O.  But oh you should have seen the other guy.” 

Holden stayed silent, his eyes turning to watch as TAO stood up, leaving the knife in his shoulder.  “For God and country, that’s what you guys say, right?”  He spat as he turned his back to his prisoner and walked towards the door.  “But just remember that when you see thousands of dead bodies, all with your name on it, neither God, nor your Country will ever forgive you.  And I don’t even think you will be able to forgive yourself.”

“When you stare into the abyss, the abyss stares back,” Holden said under his breath.


I/O Secured Warehouse,
Somewhere in Romania

Lynch stood silent watching the chubby bespectacled prodigal sitting in front of him.  His arms were tucked behind his back, as he looked at the bound up Emit.  Tears wetted his cheeks and he was blubbering.  They had yet to even touch him.  In front of the Director two I/O agents stood.  Both of them were well over six-foot tall stacked with curling muscles that stretched the black regulation uniforms into a second skin.  The room itself was dark, with only a single naked light bulb hovering over their prisoner, in a film of incandescent light.

The door crashed open, in a stiff thud.  The sound caused Emit’s back to convulse out of sheer shock.  The small rotund sergeant stepped through the doorway.  He walked slowly towards the center of the dark room.  Lynch had eased his head towards the door, like everyone else.  They had all been waiting for Tsu, before they began.  It was after all his work that led them to this place.

“Sgt. Tsu, thank you for coming,” Lynch said sharply, before turning his head back towards the prisoner.  The martial artist didn’t say a word, and continued his slow and easy steps across the concrete floor.  His left eye was hidden with an obsidian patch, but the newly applied bandages could be seen scrapping across his cheek, clean and white.

“Sorry I am late,” Tsu said as he approached John Lynch.  “Dr. Chia wanted to do a full evaluation, after she realized, as the field medic had told me, the eye is not repairable.”

“I imagined so, Sergeant,” Lynch said as he turned his gaze to the mousy woman who on the far wall. “McCready, hit the lights.”

Sascha McCready stood with a tablet gripped in her small hand.  The waif thin I/O agent was clothed in the same solid black regulation uniform all the agents wore; only her curves gave in showcasing her body in ways that grabbed the attention of every other officer.  Her blond hair was neatly pinned to the base of her skull; a single strain of hair fell across her cheek gaining freedom from the tight bunching.  The brightness of the screen dwarfed her sun kissed cheeks and nose into a sheen of pale blue.  The wall she stood at like the entire facility was devoid of any décor.  Just ashen colored concrete was all that surrounded them. 

Featureless surroundings were an important aspect of interviewing a prisoner.  It made them feel like there was no hope.  It fed on insecurities, and assisted in breaking down even the most willful mind.   McCready swiped her finger across her touch screen.  A loud switching sound made a thud as circuits clicked into operation.  A second thunderclap ignited tungsten filaments broadcasting devastating light, which washed the entire room with a blinding luminance.  Everyone but Lynch quickly slid on sunglasses, in unison.

Lynch turned his gaze back to Emit who squinted his eyes at the light.  “So, how about we get this show on the road?”  The Director spoke.  He slipped between the two tough guys, and approached Emit.  The porcupine prodigal slowly raised his head squinting at the Director.  Even without the high amount of light, he’d have had trouble seeing Lynch clearly.  His glasses had been taken from him, a while back.  They couldn’t risk him using them to kill himself, or injuring someone else.

Around the prodigal’s neck was a black collar housed with a series of LED lights.  They flashed in a uniformed pattern.  Two lights then a single light then all the lights, completely randomizing.  In truth the collar was why Emit’s hair was flat against his chubby skull and why he didn’t have the texture on his arms and fingers as he normally did.  The Collar isolated his abilities, essentially transforming him into mainline human. 

“Did you feel like a big man?”  Lynch spoke as he slowly approached the small blond haired prodigal.  “Running with TAO and his crew, made you feel like you were worth something?” 

“Y-yes, exactly that.  No one would pick on me.  I could b-be myself.”  Emit blubbered and sniffled trying to retract his tears and snot from his nose as best he could.

“There are better ways to prove your worth than committing murder.  You know that right?  What was it, revenge?  Do you hate humanity?  Or do you just feel like it doesn’t matter?”  Lynch continued.

Emit craned his head towards Lynch.  His eyes squinted more, his vision moving like a kaleidoscope around Lynch’s figure.  “I don’t understand why you are doing this to me.  Can I go to jail now?”

A second larger man walked in front of Lynch.  Like the others he was dressed from head and toe in a tight black uniform that lay over his huge muscles like a second skin.  That was saving for his left arm.  The left side sleeve was completely removed from his uniform showcasing the gray metal of his robotic prosthetic.  It looked nothing like the ones you saw in films with exposed wiring, and circuits and all that business.  This was a finely crafted steel shell, covering all the internal workings by a shining metal sleeve; it looked more like armor, than it did like the arm of a cyborg.   That is until you got to his hand.  The hand of his robotic appendage only had three digits, a thumb and then two fingers.  It was this vice like hand that gripped Emit’s thick blond hair and pulled him tight.  The portly prodigal’s neck stretched as far as it would go, his back being forced to the chair once more.

“He is asking, why you are working for TAO, and how you can sleep every night.”  The cyborg spat.  He spoke in a very loud and broad voice; the sort of voice that would never need a microphone.  His head was cleanly shaved, and the bright lights flared off his skull.  His upper lip was the only place on his exposed body that showed any sign of hair, and he wore a huge moustache that was finely waxed to the tips.

“I-I don’t hate all of humanity.  It just seemed like the right thing to do,” Emit said, as he felt the huge cyborg let go of his hair, and take a step back.

“That man is Lieutenant Charles Randolph,” Lynch spoke, “and he has a very intimate way of getting the answers we seek.  And you will tell us everything you know.  No more of this, crying like a bitch.  You’re an adult, whether you realize it or not.  And son, you’re in a lot of trouble.”

Emit leaned forward once more and spat a yellow ball of rancor past his “o” shaped lips.  The yellow spit splashed against Lynch’s cheek and slowly dripped down his jaw.  Slowly Lynch blinked then raised the side of his hand to wipe at the body fluid that was just delivered to him.  Randolph looked at Lynch for the go ahead, but the Director shook his head. 

Lynch balled his own left hand into a fist and smashed his knuckles against Emit’s invisible jaw.  More of that yellow slime along with splatters of blood escaped his teeth as the force rocked the SPB’s neck causing it to involuntarily turn to his left shoulder.

“This can be very easy or very hard, Emit,” Lynch said, as he slammed his fist into the man’s modest stomach.  “I’m not a creative type, when it comes to this shit.  But I have a feeling this is going to be a long night.”  Lynch slammed his fist into Emit’s face once more before he turned to the collective of I/O agents who had just witnessed an unchained Lynch.  Not something many of them could remember ever seeing.  The stress was obviously getting to the man.

“Everyone, clear the room, except Randolph, and you Tsu, this is your collar,” Lynch said.  Before he once again pounded his fist into Emit; blood splattered from the SPB’s mouth as his stomach was slammed into once again.


Holden Carver was used to long swaths of time of silence and solitude.  He had long been trained how to keep it together with little lighting staying in a cell.  He had found that mentally chanting mantras eased the tension that one had with little to do but stare into the inky darkness.  It kept the mind sharp and it eased the tension of being without any senses.  It also kept the mind from reeling from the failures that got them to this place, and the dread of the worst case scenario.

After years of being a covert operative, and before that a Navy Seal, he’d found himself in POW camps, retained by governments, ransomed by terrorists, and even quarantined by International Operations, the agency he formerly worked as a sleeper agent for.

This was every reason why it was strange, that despite his constant mantra, he couldn’t get the thoughts of vinegar from his head.  The anger of being taken from the dream of those people he loved, and thrust back into the hell of Lynch Vs Tao.  And put back into the place of bloodshed and the death of so many he loved and cared for.  It wasn’t this cell that felt like prison.  It was the constant reminder of his life, and the cage that had been formed around his pursuit of happiness.

“H-holden?”  A small squeaky voice called between the dark and rusty bars.  The small hands enclosed the metal bars and shook the housing enough to cause flecks of corroded metal to float to the cement floor.  Carver’s eyes flashed open, like daggers.  The small bald head stared back with a very rough and uneven smile.  The face of a man he’d given a ticket away from all this.  And it was that ticket, which turned around to bite him in the ass.

“Go away,” Carver said in small whisper.  His bloodshot eyes stared at the small white flesh that seemed to be illuminated in thin strains from the light bulbs along the hallway.

“Not until you hear me out, man,” Pitbull spoke, his large eyes narrowed three sizes and his smile faded into a frown.  “You have the wrong idea about all of this.”

“The wrong idea,” Carver said his anger threatening to blister his parched throat.  “Every kindness I’ve ever done for you has resulted in my hand getting bit by a stupid fucking mutt.  You sold me out, for what, this?  A chance to wipe TAO’s ass again, if I don’t put a bullet in your head, TAO will.”

“Carver, would you ever consider that maybe for once you don’t have everything figured out?”  He gripped the bars harder.  “That maybe there’s things you haven’t considered?”

Carver looked away from Pitbull.  He figured if he just stayed quiet he would get the idea.  There was no use in threatening the kid.  He was after all here for a reason and he wasn’t leaving until he finished the task more than likely pushed on by TAO.   Of course as soon as Carver lowered his head a voice barked through the darkness.  “What is going on here?” a Romanian voice asked in iffy control of English.

Pitbull turned his gaze from the dark cell, and to the guard who walked towards him.  Through the ill lighting the guard looked almost ghastly.  His green fatigues looked almost obsidian, and his olive skin tarnished to a chalk white, contrasted by the thick beard that grew in curls across the lower half of the man’s face.  Carver could see that the man held himself solid.  A stocky build with powerful arms and a barrel chest, obviously generated through years of manual labor.  Obviously he was a baseline human, but Carver didn’t give Pitbull a fighting chance if he enraged the militia man, even with his powers.  Pitbull was agile and quick.  But the man was trained.

“Just talking to our weapon,” Pitbull said a sly smile slipping across his thin lips.  He let go of the rusted bars, and took a step towards the guard.  The guard came within a foot of the canine-man and stopped cold.

“I don’t think you are supposed to be here,” the guard spoke.  Pitbull was already at the man’s side draping his arm across the guard’s thick shoulders and neck.  “What are you doing?” he asked.

“Now I think we can keep this between the two of us,” Pitbull said turning to gaze into the blue eyes of the guard.  An uneven smile slipped across his face, as he pulled the short and stout guard to his chest in a sideways hug.

“No, I think you are not supposed to be here.  You and your… prodigals are supposed to be only in the lab area.  Does your TAO know you are here?” the guard asked Pitbull.

“I think we can come to some agreement about this situation,” Pitbull spoke, “I could even make it worth your while.”

The guard slowly let a smile fade across his lips.  In that instant, Pitbull’s freehand slipped to his waist.  His hand moved faster than even Carver would have been prepared for.  Scooping the Glock that hung at his waist, he pressed the gun, to the Romanian guard’s temple.  For a moment he hesitated, a sick smile lightened the SPB’s features, watching the moment of realization strike across the guard’s features.  Then with the click of the trigger the hand gun ignited in thunderclap.  The man’s head exploded like a watermelon.  Blood and gray matter made a slapping sound as it hit the concrete wall and dripped to the floor like molasses.

“What the fuck did you just do, Pitbull?”  Carver asked finally turning his gaze to a man whose life he had saved all those years ago.  The slick headed SPB didn’t pause to wipe the blood from his neck, instead bending down to the gored guard.

“You weren’t going to listen anyways,” Pitbull spoke, focusing on the guard’s pockets.  “I can’t risk being caught, despite how it looks I do value my life.” 

Carver sighed as he dropped his head back to his shoulders.  “Keys!” Pitbull said dangling a huge ring or antique keys from his hand.  His thin body stood up, the dead guard thumping back to the floor.  A pool of crimson body fluids already was pooling from the huge hole bored in the man’s skull.  The keys were dressed in the same red. 

“You are going to get both of us killed,” Carver spoke as Pitbull clanked the cell door open.  His eyes flicked to the corners of his sockets, as Pitbull began to pull the spikes from his flesh.  Each huge pole made metallic rings as they hit the floor.  Even before Pitbull began on the locks of the manacles the wounds from the poles had already began knitting themselves.

“Come on, big guy,” Pitbull said as he leaned forward to grab Carver’s arm.

“Don’t be stupid, I’m holding it back as it is,” Carver said slowly standing up.  Though he couldn’t feel the wear on his leg muscles there was a lot of resistance.  The bones and tendons popped as he straightened his legs.  “Lead the way, not as though there’s much choice in the situation now.”


The scene looked vicious.  Emit sat hunkered in his chair, his huge body breathing heavily, his stout shoulders flexing with each labored breath.  Blood ran in strings from his nose and mouth.  His eyes had been swollen shut with pink and purple veins exposed on the round and risen skin.  Inside his mind he wanted it to be over, he wanted the pain to stop.  The last fifteen minutes had felt like a lifetime.  He was scared that the next bit of pain would be his breaking point.  How he had survived close lipped thus far was beyond him.  He was never good at receiving pain.

John Lynch hovered over the broken prodigal.  His fists were clenched tight and fresh blood dripped off his knuckles dripping with soft splats onto the cold concrete floor.  Like Emit, the I/O director was also taking in huge amounts of air.  His lungs pushed and delivered oxygen in steady puffs, as he prepared himself for the next wave of the interrogation.   “Tell me where TAO is holed up,” Lynch spoke, both the organic eye, and the cyborg white slit looked at the man over the bridge of his nose.  Sweat poured from his sweating face dripping off his chin and nose.

“I… am… not…going to…” Emit said between breaths.  “Do your…worst.”

The huge cyborg that stood a few steps behind Lynch, let out a savage smile his waxed moustache raising to press against his nose.  “I have many, many things in store for you.”  He spoke his projected voice booming with what could have been confused as joy.  He gripped an iron pipe in the gleaming cybernetic appendage and playfully slapped it against the inside of his human palm.

“I don't think brute force will get us anywhere.  I think we have been through this,” Tsu said as he looked at what appeared to be cyborg.

“I have to forgive you agent Tsu,” the cyborg said turning his tree truck sized neck, to find the glance of the much smaller Chinese man.  “You are good in a great many things, but interrogation.  Well that needs a special touch.  I agree, pounding away at him isn't going to get anything done.  Battery torture rarely stimulates the effect of hopelessness by itself.”  The cyborg turns to Emit with a wink.  “But trust me, we are just getting started.  And we will have a lot of fun.  Lynch is just taking out some frustration on you.  Your boss, and he... well they have a long history.”

Lynch turned his head from the bleeding and blubbering Emit.  His wide brows lifted from were they lay above his eyes.  “Agent Randolph you are good at what you do.  But unfortunately, I need you here more for the special aura you bring to those in your presence, today.  We don't have time to peel his skin back and start removing small bones from his insides.”  Lynch turned his attention to Emit and began to walk towards him.  “Unfortunately I need to take this information.  I only needed to make sure, that in risking this I made all the precautions.”

Both Tsu and Randolph knew what Lynch was alluding to.   One of his most carefully guarded secrets.  He himself was a Super Powered Being.  Lynch was one of the most powerful Telepaths known to I/O.  However that power came with a cost, which is why he wasn't known for such an impressive ability.  The more he used his power the closer he came to knocking on death's door.  And if he used his power he was careful he wasn’t just wasting his time.

Emit's purple and swelled face craned up to squint as best he could at Lynch.  The stout director carefully rolled up the sleeves of his blood stained button down dress shirt.  His muscled arms exposed to just below the elbow.  Carefully he pulled the bloody gloves from his hands.  “W-what are you going to do?”  Emit questioned as Lynch stopped inches from his face.

Lynch slid his cheek against the prodigal's.  Emit's blood covered cheek marking a pattern of crimson across the I/O director's.  Stopping at the broken man's ear Lynch whispered.  “It’s going to hurt.  More than all this other stuff we've been doing.”

Emit couldn't widen his eyes anymore, and his jaw throbbed from the battering.  All he could do was let out something of half hearted scream as Lynch's fingers pressed into his temples.

Lynch's ability was ghastly for an on looker.  Even Agent Randolph had a problem watching as Emit's brutalized face contorted in pain and misery.  White bile dripped from his lips, from the furthest reaches of his stomach.  Substance-less vomit dripping off his blood smeared double chin in strings.  The disgusting bile was met with thick torrents of snot that ran from his nose.  Transparent strings of slime that was veined with his blood.  His eyes drained tears down his cheeks mixing in with all the body fluids all dripping to his lap, which was already wet from the previous battery.

Emit however wasn't the only one who showed the signs of a mind being forcefully entered.  Sweat poured from Lynch's forehead, and small streams of blood leaked from his nose and ears.  His hands and arms shook as his human eye rapidly fluttered like a psychic doing a séance.

The fifteen-minute process seemed to be hours, to both Randolph and Tsu as they watched the disturbing power that Lynch possessed.  Where Tsu always questioned why Lynch didn't use it very often even when looking at certain death.  This episode sold him on it.  If he had that power he wasn't sure he'd ever use it.  This was the thing of nightmares.

Inside Emit’s mind things were just as horrific.  Flashes of memories began to erupt like the strobe of lights inside Lynch.  He saw birth, and playground taunts.  He saw Emit being brutally beaten and his three attempts at suicide.  It took all of his willpower to direct the mental flashes to what he wanted.  That was when he saw Carver being impaled with spikes.  He watched a moment of TAO discussing his plans for Carver.  He saw the prodigals, and he saw Pitbull.  The images scattered to a dark tunnel, an old Soviet concrete bunker.  Then as the mind began to spiral into his control TAO’s face appeared stopping the flashes of memories.  The villain’s thin lips were smiling.  “Oh, so close John, but you are too late,” were the words that reverberated through his mind as his mind was ripped from Emit's.

“FUCK!”  Lynch pushed against Emit's head, capsizing the metal chair in a savage clank.  His feet gave out that same moment and he fell to the floor.  Laying on the cold floor his body heaved and convulsed.  Tsu strode towards him laying his hand on the man's broad shoulders.  “Are you okay, sir?” 

“Of... course I'm... not.”  He labored for his words between huge swallows of air.  “TAO had him good; really good.”  He coughed; a splat of blood marring the gray concrete of the floor.  “Jesus, I've never seen a mind like that.”

“But you got the information?”  Randolph asked, his glance turning to Emit.  The Prodigal's head was bowed low, the strings of his body fluids having turned completely red.  He was motionless, cold and without a pulse.

“Yeah... Tsu I need you to get McCready,” Lynch spoke his speaking getting worse.  “I believe I found TAO.” 


Pitbull's combat boots splashed recklessly in the inch of stagnant water.  Holden Carver was a few feet behind the dog-man, his eyes looking and surveying the old drainage tunnel, he had been led down.  His legs still felt like jelly, but the strength was slowly returning.  Not so much that he had gotten rid of the limp.  The tunnel smelled of dank mildew, and the walls were dark almost bracken.  Through the half a mile journey he'd seen one access ladder.  This didn't give him much to go on.  This was a not the best plan.  Carver was right to not to have trusted his former ally.  He was being led into a trap.  Not even Pitbull was this stupid.  In the way of plans to get someone into a hopeless scenario, this would have been really good.  If someone assumed there was someone in this world left alive that Carver trusted.  Or that he believed he had a hope of escape.  Unfortunately, TAO underestimated him once again.

“Come on, Carver, it’s not too much further!” Pitbull yelled from in front of him.  His thin head turned on his shoulder.  He was sure it was for the little guy to make sure Carver still followed him.

Carver turned his head back towards the way they were heading.  He could see the yellow light up ahead the lights seemed to form a rectangle.  It wasn't natural light, which meant two things.  The exit was inside the room, an access ladder more than likely.  Secondly that maintenance room was occupied. 

“Pitbull, stop,” Carver said, in his normal relaxed voice.

“Were almost there,” Pitbull said with another shout.

Carver knew that he was surely being led into this trap, and the kid knew it.  The biggest problem was that he had little choice but to follow, just as he had no choice when the guard's brains were painted on his cell wall.  It was all a ploy.  But TAO couldn't have been so stupid as to try to play with his mind.  They'd been through that song and dance.  Then it hit him.  It was a set up, for him to be moved into location.  This was where it was all going to go down.  They needed Carver full of pain and ready to use his powers.

As they neared the closed metal door’s bleeding yellow light, Pitbull slowed his sprint and turned to Carver.  Carver's left hand had drawn to his hip his right clenched in a fist. Pitbull turned his head towards the man who had saved his life.   His eyes dropped to Carver's left hand as the former sleeper agent drew the machine pistol from the green sweat pants.  “Don't open that fucking door,” Carver said.  “I will kill you.”

“I'm sorry, Holden,” Pitbull said as he turned the knob.

Gun powder lit the tunnel for a second as the payload snapped like thunder.  Pitbull felt the cold bite in his shoulder, as the bullet drove through his chest splattering the door with red.  The door came open in that same second.  Ancient hinges screaming as the yellow light caught the end of the drainage tunnel.  Pitbull fell, face first in the water with a splash.  His head landed on the toes of TAO's shoes.

“We really need to quit meeting like this, Holden,” TAO said as the fifteen men behind him all cocked their rifles in unison like a metallic applause.

“Shit...”  Holden mouthed.


The small room seemed overly crowded.  There were almost thirty I/O agents, crammed into the small beige walled hotel room.    The murmur of talk seemed to be a language all to itself, as a handful of Sci-tech agents, worked in the corner of the room with Sascha McCready.  Lynch stood over top of them all with his hands on his hips.  He did all he could to explain where TAO was holed up.  He got it down to the quadrant of the city, and by describing shapes of rooms and the way the structure was laid out, they continued to investigate possibilities.  Sascha was quick and efficient, and the members of Sci-tech were some of the world's leading technology specialists.  They would find the location it was just a matter of when.  The problem was that time was no longer a virtue.  TAO was about to strike.  The only saving grace was that he had yet to hear about the catastrophe.  Granted since they were in the city, none of them would probably hear anything about it.  They would be beyond such worldly matters at that point.

“Hold on, hold on here,” McCready said as she turned to a blond haired Sci-tech agent with a short looking pompadour.    Her round face gave a huge grin that seemed to affect her entire face with her bright ivory teeth.  “You are a genius, Reynold!  Why didn't I think of that?  By looking for multileveled bunkers in the old Soviet manifests... I think we've limited it down.”

She swiveled her chair in a 180 degree arc.  Her small body turned fully to meet Lynch's posturing.  Despite having come close to death, and being sickly pale she had to hand it to him.  Standing as he had been for the last hour, she often forgot he was feeling so awful.  It was hard to tell he had used that power of his.  “Director Lynch, I think we’re close.  There are three locations we have pinpointed.  They all have three floors at least, and they are all on the eastern side of town.”

“Do any of them have holding facilities?”  Lynch asked.

“Two of them do,” she responded.

“And of those two, does either of them also contain science labs that would have been in use during the 70’s?”

McCready turned in her chair, and went back to her computer.  Quickly she began to flip through old Soviet records on her system through Adobe Reader.  “Hmm, well they both do have areas that are labeled science.  It’s hard to tell the years in operation.  What else do you have?”

“Well, judging by what we know, agent, they used a lot of tunnels in their attacks.  Which means TAO is near to a major tunnel hub, including one that will bring them directly to the center of town.  They wouldn't risk exposure after all, until they set up Carver I would assume.”

“That’s good sir, really good,” McCready said as her fingers began to click through windows at a blistering rate.  She turned to the Sci-tech members and spoke something to the collective might of computer specialists.  And suddenly everyone began to quickly click and clack away at keyboards.

Lynch sighed as he raised his posture back up to a full standing position.  His pink hand slid across his mane of hair.  He thought finding them would have been a simple process.  He knew they were doing their best, and he was asking a lot of them.  But he wanted to be in the field.  He wanted to be confronting TAO, and ending this for one last time.

“YES!” a lanky Sci-tech agent spoke as he threw is black-gloved hands into the air.  Lynch immediately took the few steps towards the agent.  McCready was at his side in less than a second.  The thin man turned his coke-bottle like glasses towards Lynch blinking his huge eyes several times.

“What is it Jones?” McCready asked in a hiss.

“This place HAS to be it,” he said, his chubby face switching between the sickly gaze of Lynch and the bouncing with excitement gaze of Sascha McCready.

Lynch bent down to the screen, and began to look through the blue prints on the computer.  “This is perfect, Jones is it?” the I/O Director said.

“It used to be a supply silo for the Russians in the late 60's to early 80's.  It was originally an armory but it due to the supply lines through various sewer systems, and military tunnels, it was also used heavily as a prisoner transport hub,” Jones explained.

“Good job, man,” Lynch said as his face brightened considerably.  He then turned his gaze to McCready.  “Find out who all we have at the ready.  I want all available personnel suited up and on their way to this location.”

“At once sir,” McCready said. “Now you need to have a lie down, you’re going to keel over at any moment.

“I don't think so.  No more fucking around.  This ends tonight.”

To Be Continued...

NEXT ISSUE: What you've all been reading this for.  It has all been leading up to this moment.  The confrontation between LYNCH and TAO comes to a head.  Be here next time for the conclusion of SLEEPER: EPILOGUE.

SLEEP TALK:

 I know its been a bit of a lapse between issue four, and the chapter you are looking at now.  But I hope it’s been worth the wait.  The journey to this issue has been a little rough, but I hope it has paid off.  Between restructuring a bit at Wildstorm, to breaking my hand,  it’s been a tough go to finish this issue, but here it is.  And don't worry about issue 6 and the conclusion-- it will be done, and it is going to blow your mind.

Thank you to every one of you who read this thing, and waited all the months between last issue and this one.  Let’s not let it happen again.  Let’s finish this thing and see where everyone lands.  I'm excited to start writing the last issue of this story that I've been working on the better part of two years.  But it will be worth it.  Just hold on a little longer.

See you all here next time, for the last time.

Jae Lizhini
06/06/11
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