Amanda's Story (22 page)

Amanda had witnessed the entire encounter from Bennett's perspective. She had wanted him to hit Martin from the instant she felt his mind draw near, and was fairly certain that she had nudged Bennett in that direction. She rubbed her right hand and the lingering sting that she shared with Bennett. She couldn't remember ever striking someone in anger, and the experience left something to be desired. For one thing it hurt, and even Bennett, his mind receding into the distance and into the white noise of a hundred other minds, was wondering if he had cracked a metacarpal on Martin's chin. For another, it did nothing to relieve the pressure that was once again building inside her—the same pressure that had nearly compelled her to hurt Bennett. Martin saw her as an expendable asset, a thing to be used for his advantage. His very presence stoked a firestorm of emotions that needed to be vented, and she wanted to lash out. She indulged herself as wonderfully violent images played through her mind.

Make it happen,
a voice, the very essence of seduction, whispered from the darkness. It wasn't the first time the alien voice had offered advice. Amanda had heard its whispers for weeks now.
Lose yourself
. As much as she wanted to deny it, the darkness and its voice were and had always been a part of her. It wasn't alien; it was homegrown. More than twenty years of societal pressures and learning how to be a “good girl” had silenced it, but now it had recovered its voice and strength. But it was still innocent, still a small child. It had encouraged her to hurt Bennett only because it didn't know better. She had to teach it, direct it, and when appropriate, use it.

“Not yet,” Amanda whispered to herself.

After Bennett had left, Amanda's view of the observation room became poor. The strong emotions that fueled and emanated from the darkness in her mind obscured its vision. She tried to find Martin in the chorus that sang in her head, but her energized mind lacked the focus. It kept defaulting to Bennett, whose voice was remote but recognizable. She closed her eyes and willed herself to focus, but her mental stream kept diverting down the well-worn groove to William Bennett. After countless futile efforts she finally relented, and his familiar mind seemed to flow around her. Hoping that her mental spelunking would slow her racing thoughts, she decided to camp out in his mind, but the memory of Emily Larson suddenly flooded her thoughts. In details too real for life, she saw her aunt's university photograph on Bennett's desktop computer and heard her strained voice in his ear. He had talked with her and she was coming. The possibility that this nightmare could be over so suddenly added to her emotional energy, and she very nearly missed Nathan Martin opening the outer airlock.

Her mind whipped back to the present and her mental focus became sharp as a knife. With almost no effort, she sliced into Martin's mind with all the force she could generate. It was a purely instinctive reaction to what her darkness had perceived as a mortal threat. It took her conscious mind half a second to realize that she had overshot the mark. The last thing she heard was Martin's scream as his body hit the floor. She awoke moments later, her head throbbing worse than earlier. For the second time in a day she learned that the mental connection was reciprocal. Too much force and it would rebound back into her.

Amanda felt and heard Martin groan as he regained a painful level of consciousness. His head, back, and chin all hurt, and now Amanda's head, back, and chin throbbed as well. This physical reciprocity was one aspect that she could do without. He climbed to his feet and slowly began to don the very familiar white isolation suit. He was clumsy at first but then managed to relearn to use his limbs and digits. He kicked the biohazard box with a gowned shoe and cursed as his foot now began to ache.

“Open the airlock,” his muffled voice said, and Amanda heard the metallic click. Before he could open the airtight door it clicked a second time. He tripped into the locked door.

“Very funny; now open the airlock.” The door clicked again, and then just as quickly the locks re-engaged.

“I am starting to become annoyed.” Martin's voice was loud enough to penetrate the sealed chamber.

Click. Click.

“Who the hell is up there?” Martin was punching the intercom button.

“The locks keep re-engaging, Dr. Martin.”

“Check to make sure that the airflow is reversed; the door can't be opened otherwise.” Amanda heard the cutting and cynical comments that Martin left unsaid. His thoughts opened up before her and she saw a series of relays and pumps. She focused on the largest pump and imagined it suddenly grounding to a halt in a flurry of sparks and smoke. “God damn it, you just shut down all the air!”

She had just shorted out a pump she had never seen, and had done it with a simple thought! The realization that her thoughts could translate into physical effects overshadowed everything. Her mind reeled with possibilities. She focused on the plastic chair at the foot of her bed and imagined it sliding across the floor, and an instant later it slammed into the wall. Amanda squealed in joy and began to laugh. She turned on the television, then all the lights in her room, then turned them all off. Not a soul was watching her. They were all focused on Martin and his plight.

“I could kill him!” she thought. A vision of Nathan Martin being thrown around the small access chamber, his body rebounding like a basketball off the walls, the floor and the roof. “No one would know!”

“Dr. Martin, we don't have access to the air pumps. They're regulated automatically by the computer. You might want to think about getting out of there, because the recirculation pump is about to kick on and evacuate that chamber.”

“What?” Martin screamed.

“The computer is reading that the inner door has been opened and that there is a containment breech. It will send all the air in there through the filters and replace it with fresh air; only, the fresh air pump is the one that just failed. Is your suit intact?”

Amanda felt Martin search the polypropylene suit and find a two-inch cut just above his shoe. A small line of blood ran down the fabric. “No, I have a tear in it just above my ankle. I accidentally kicked the box I was carrying.” A pump cycled on and a loud whistling filled Martin's ears and Amanda's mind.

“Dr. Martin, get out of the suit and release the inner lock manually. You have only a few seconds before that chamber is evacuated of air. Once that happens the doors will not open.”

Martin frantically pulled at the hood and zipper but his fingers weren't working fast enough. He started screaming to turn off the pump, but his voice was lost in the loud whistling as air was sucked out of the small access chamber and into the ceiling vents.

He was going to die in that tiny little chamber, and Amanda was going to happily watch the whole thing. It was the ultimate in poetic justice. On his way to kill her he dies in an industrial accident of his own making. Of course, it wasn't entirely of his making, but no one could prove that.

Martin banged on the door loud enough for it to resonate through her cell, and Amanda's mind. “Fuck,” she whispered to herself and turned away, but his pleading consciousness pulled at her.

Just let it happen,
her dark voice whispered.

I can't just let him die, she answered.

Why not?

Because it's wrong.
She rolled off the bed and pulled at the airlock door. The magnetic clamps immediately released, and a gust of air knocked her into the struggling Martin. The whistling took on a lower pitch as the pump no longer strained to suck out every last molecule of breathable air. He had torn off the hood of the suit and his blood-red face was inches from hers. “Next time, I let you die,” she said, pushing away his arm as he tried to use her for support.

“Why did you let him in there, Corporal?” Captain Lewis's eyes drilled the young soldier to the wall. “You were ordered to watch him.”

“He said that he had authority. When I refused him access he made several calls and General Macintyre ordered me to allow him to proceed.” The corporal stood at attention before his captain and the colonel, who towered over both of them.

“What happened in there, soldier?” Colonel Bennett asked.

“The doctor was trapped inside the access chamber when one of the recirculation pumps failed. He was suffocating and I couldn't get to him. The locks were engaged and then the doors wouldn't open with the vacuum. She opened the far hatch.”

Both of the officers stared at the young man and then at Amanda, who had returned to her bed. Her arms were folded across her chest as she waited for someone to remember her. “So the patient, that small woman in there, opened up the door when you couldn't?”

“Yes, sir.” His embarrassment was overshadowed by his confusion.

“You're dismissed, Corporal,” Lewis said and then turned to the colonel. “Same story as Martin's monitoring technicians. An accident.”

“Only, it doesn't feel like an accident, and if the monitors hadn't been running it would be hard to convince anyone that it was,” Bennett said to his security chief.

Nathan Martin sat on a stool, his head propped against the glass as one EMT administered oxygen while another took his blood pressure. He had a blank look on his face that was accentuated by wide, empty eyes. “He looks like he's had a concussion,” Lewis said to Bennett.

Martin turned his head slowly. “I fell on the slippery floor.” He stared up at the two officers. “I think I hit my head.”

“Better get him a CT scan,” Bennett said, and a moment later his cell phone rang. “Colonel Bennett,” he answered after taking an imperceptible centering breath.

“Bennett, where's Dr. Martin? I've been calling his phone for twenty minutes.”

“He is sitting right next to me, General Macintyre. He's had something of an accident.” He passed the phone to a stunned-looking Martin, who for a moment appeared as if he couldn't remember how the device worked.

“Hello?” Martin's blank face began to register confusion. “No, I didn't call you. I don't even know who you are.” Martin listened for several seconds. “No one hit me, and I didn't call you. What do you want?” His baseline personality began to resurface. “Here, he wants to talk to you.” He passed the phone back to Bennett.

“Yes, General.”

“That man is absolutely certifiable.” He huffed and then cleared his throat. “I understand that the two of you disagree on the management of your patient.”

Bennett registered the change in Amanda's ownership. “Actually, sir, we have not disagreed an iota about her treatment, as she has required none. We do, however, strongly disagree about the ethics of human experimentation.” Macintyre was a four-star general and the commander of the US Army, next in line for the chairmanship of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, but Bennett couldn't resist the opportunity to make his point.

“What's the status of the patient?”

“She is alive and well. Dr. Martin managed to nearly asphyxiate himself trying to re-infect her. Ironically, she was the one who saved his life.”

Macintyre huffed again. “Colonel, I understand that this has been difficult for you. A commanding officer who is also a physician will invariably be placed in situations of conflicting loyalties.” Bennett waited for an apology he knew would never come. “I would like you to collect Dr. Martin and his staff and have them escorted off of the base. Dr. Martin's access has been revoked.”

The general allowed him a moment and Bennett took it. “What's happened, General?”

A longer moment followed, and Bennett began to worry that his single question was one too many. “I suppose you deserve an explanation. After all, I did fire you for doing your duty.” He huffed for a third time. “Conflicting loyalties, Colonel. Our Commander in Chief had a sudden change in heart after he had a chat with a ranking member of the Senate. I doubt very many people would vote for a man who authorized the incarceration of a woman whose only crime was surviving.”

“I would agree, sir.”

“When you feel that this young lady is safe to be released, you release her. The records of her treatment are to be sealed and classified as Top Secret. Am I understood, Colonel?”

“Perfectly, sir.”

“One more thing.”

“Yes, sir?”

“Did you strike Dr. Martin?”

“I'm afraid that information is classified, General.”

Macintyre laughed. “Well done, Colonel.”

It was a hug that threatened to go on forever, and each time Amanda tried to pull away her aunt only squeezed tighter. “I thought I lost you” was interspersed with “Don't you ever do that to me again.”

“I don't think you have to worry about that.” Amanda finally pulled away.

“I am so angry! You've been here the whole time? An hour away from home?” Colonel Bennett had allowed Emily onto the base for a quiet reunion.

“Most of it,” Amanda answered. For the first time in almost four months, Amanda was dressed like a real person, and Emily plucked some lint from her sleeve.

“When we get out of here, I'll take you for some new clothes,” Emily said, her face red and wet.

“You're going to go shopping, for clothes?” Amanda teased.

“Just this once,” and she gave Amanda another hug. A tiny electrical buzz played across Amanda's skin; at first it had been slightly uncomfortable but now it was almost inviting. Emily abruptly pushed away and dried her tears with a handful of tissues. “Let's get the hell out of here,” she said, very much like the Emily Larson that had raised Amanda. Emotions made her uncomfortable, and a public display of emotion was almost a singular event. “Where are your things?”

“They're all gone.” A distant vision of a large fire in the middle of a Honduran field suddenly interrupted Amanda's stream of thought.

“Bastards probably burned everything,” Emily swore. “Someone needs to be held accountable for this fiasco.” A righteously indignant Emily Larson was a happy Emily Larson.

“I need to thank someone before we go.”

“Okay,” she said slowly, turning Amanda transparent with her patented x-ray gaze. “Thank the colonel for me as well.” She smiled and winked as Amanda turned towards the door of the rec room. “See if you can find us something to eat. Crying makes me hungry.”

“Come in, Amanda,” Colonel Bennett said a moment after she knocked on his office door.

The energy of his thoughts bumped a quantum level as she walked into his office. “So that's what you look like in real clothes. I must say I approve.” She did a little curtsy for him and flashed her thousand-watt smile. She didn't need her ability to sense the expectation in the room, and the darkness in her mind began to stir. William Bennett was a good-looking man, no matter his age. In fact, the slight grey at his temples and the crow's feet only enhanced his chiseled features. His broad shoulders and chest stretched his perfectly pressed uniform, and on more than one occasion she had admired the view as she watched him walk away.

“I just wanted to thank you for everything that you did for me.” Her mouth was becoming a little dry and her heart was racing. The darkness began to swirl a little faster, stripping her of restraint. Flashes of their entwined, naked, and sweaty bodies pulsed through her.

“Of course.” He rose from his desk and offered her a seat with a hand gesture. He rounded his desk just as she reached the office chair, and for an instant they were only inches apart. Amanda's breath caught as his aura brushed through hers. “I'm glad you came by. I was hoping to discuss something with you,” he said as he sat on the corner of his desk.

“Yes,” Amanda answered, barely understanding his words. She was consumed by desire and offered very little resistance. Reason, propriety, logistics—everything faded into the background as an animal lust raced through her being. A primal need, more powerful than anything she had ever felt with her husband, drove her to the edge of her seat. Without her even being aware of it, her hand had found his knee. She wasn't interested in making love. She wanted sex in its most base form. Pounding, thrusting, scratching, hair-pulling sex.

“Are you all right, Amanda?” Bennett asked, completely oblivious to her condition. “You seem distracted.” He looked at her hand on his knee.

“I'm fine,” she struggled to say, but kept her hand in place. Only a lifetime of conditioning stopped her from attacking him. She had always been the passive partner in previous sexual experiences, but being the aggressor seemed so much more natural and exciting. She watched herself tear off his shirt, handcuffing his arms behind his back as she raped him on his desk. She closed her eyes briefly and shifted in her chair.

“When you arrived here …” His hand covered hers, pinning it in place. The contact with his skin burned for a moment, which only stoked the fire that blazed within her. “You were a very different person. Taking into account all that had happened to you, it wasn't surprising to find that you seemed somewhat lost …”

A beautifully detailed hallucination filled Amanda's mind and obscured everything Bennett said. She was naked and bent over his desk, their clothes thrown into a corner. Bennett was behind her and deep inside, grunting as he pounded away. She was screaming words she had never even whispered, encouraging him to take her to new heights. She felt her bare breasts grating against the top of his desk and only wanted more.

“… vulnerable and fragile,” he continued as Amanda's mind drove her towards orgasm. “But something about you has changed. I would like you to level with me and tell me honestly what happen yesterday with Dr. Martin.” He paused, as Amanda's eyes had closed and her face creased in pain. The hand on his thigh began to squeeze and then it released. “Amanda, what's wrong?” He quickly moved to her side and felt her glistening neck for her pulse. Her body shivered several times and then she opened her eyes.

At first she was lost, and surprised to find Colonel Bennett at her side, and then the memory flooded back. The desire had faded but not dissipated, and she felt it rise again as his hand swept a lock of sweaty hair from her cheek. She flushed, and a muted whisper of shame echoed in her mind, but it was quickly replaced by loud cries of delight. She had just had an orgasm inches from the man she had fantasized about. A deep, soul-shattering orgasm that left her feeling wonderfully nasty and dirty. “I'm okay,” she said, taking his hand and staring deep into his eyes. Her mind started to slide into his and she felt his pull. He kissed her, gently at first, and then with more urgency.

“This is so wrong,” he whispered, and her arms snaked around his neck. He lifted her out of the chair and they renewed the kiss. Her legs wrapped around his midsection as he turned and gently lowered her to his desk. “Unprofessional,” he managed to say just before he tore open her blouse and began to smother her heaving breasts. His shirt was off, thrown into a corner; in an instant the rest of their clothes were gone, along with his remaining restraint. She clung to him, nails in his back, as he entered her with an urgency that no force could deny. She screamed in his ear as he buried himself body and soul into this woman half his age. Then she was on top of him, leaning low to give him her breasts, as she drove her pelvis into his. He found himself standing, his hands on her hips, her body bent over his desk. He was grunting like an animal and she was screaming in ecstasy. They dissolved into each other and into the moment with only fragmentary thoughts of mutual pleasure.

“It's been an hour and a half,” Emily accused Amanda.

“Sorry, we had something that needed to be worked out.” Amanda had done the best she could at repairing herself. She didn't care if the rest of the world knew what had just happened, she just didn't want Emily to know.

Emily appraised her niece with a long stare, and Amanda's heart dropped when Emily's mind drew the correct conclusion. “I'm sure you did,” was all she said.