Captured Souls (18 page)

“I have a surprise for you,” I told Specimen 2 as I entered his home gym. He was lifting weights, his tight-muscled ass jutting out as he slowly stood under the pressure.

“What is it?” he huffed as he reached full height. He slowly lowered the weights again and then raised the bar above his head before putting it down heavily. It was the best decision to keep his gym equipment in his massive bedroom. He didn’t have a several-room suite as Specimen 1 does, but slamming that kind of weight down in an old house like this would likely result in the barbells going right through the floor. At least down here we were on solid concrete that went down four feet. I know because I have several spots where I’ve put squirrel nests with important documents, spare keys, data, and other valuable information and goods. I had this floor specially poured a few years ago after my experiments became more secretive and more high stakes.

“I’m sending you to San Francisco,” I said. “I can’t go because I have to give two lectures next week.”

“Why am I going to San Francisco?”

“So you can participate in the Escape from Alcatraz triathlon.”

His eyes widened in delight.

“You’re letting me enter?”

“Letting you? You’re already signed up, come and see.”

I went over to his desk and sat down in his chair. Since his computer was already on, it only took a second to load the Escape from Alcatraz triathlon dummy page that I had replicated from the original. Oh yes, he was going, his name was the same in real life as in the shell. He was definitely participating in Alcatraz.

Part of me wanted to go there with him. To stand on the pier staring out at Alcatraz Island, watching thousands of eager triathletes swimming towards San Francisco. I’d been to San Francisco several times and knew how mysterious that fog was and the secrets it could hide. How steep those roads were, and all those triathletes had to bike their way up and down those windy roller coasters. It would be a good race.

I needed to stay in Toronto. I couldn’t be flying to San Francisco with Specimen 2. It was much too risky.

Everything I prepared was with the utmost delicate care. There could be zero room for forensic signs of sabotage. There could be no room for detection or error.

The implants needed to be programmed to pass the Customs detection machines and any other searches that might occur at the border and the marathon.

He needed to be programmed to not talk about us, the tongue implant burning him if he says anything at all out of line. I would be monitoring through my phone and computers and other surveillance equipment.

I need to ramp the stamina strain to the upmost frequency so that it can be captured. If it’s possible to capture and save.

The triathlon was to be televised on a specialty pay station that I could get through a US cable system. Specimen 1 and I sat down to watch how he’d fare. Specimen 1 didn’t know I could hear everything that Specimen 2 said through my earpiece and I could watch whom he was speaking with through a tiny camera in his swimming attire.

The triathletes were all on the ferry, eagerly waiting for it to chug out to the designated spot, already shivering from the cold ocean breeze through their bathrobes. Birds called, piercing through my headpiece. I hoped Specimen 1 couldn’t hear but he was engrossed in the big-screen TV, trying to spot Specimen 2 in the throngs.

The camera panned across the athletes and we caught a quick glimpse of Specimen 2 staring out at the water with firm concentration.

I fiddled with some buttons on my cell phone. Specimen 1 looked over at me.

“I can’t believe you’re texting when the race is about to begin.”

“It hasn’t begun yet.” I smiled.

The boat reached its destination and soon the diving began. The water was filled with triathletes swimming towards the San Francisco Harbor. I clicked my cell phone buttons again. The camera panned across the water. The announcer suddenly had panic in his voice.

“Oh my God, off to the left, there is a dorsal fin. A large dorsal fin. And it’s headed right for the swimmers.”

Whistles were blown in panic and some of the swimmers turned to look. A great white shark breached the water with an athlete in its mouth. There were screams as blood filled the water. Swimmers raced toward the boat, clawing over each other as they blindly flailed. Two more dorsal fins appeared and more great whites breached the water with hapless swimmers in their mouths.

The sharks feasted on the athletes like popcorn, the water a slick red, athletes, dripping blood, pulled onto the boat by panicked volunteers.

In my ear, there had been shrieking and crying and then the feed stopped. For a second after the TV coverage stopped, Specimen 2 screamed in my ear, water crashing against the mic. And then there was nothing.

Specimen 1 was frantically trying to find CNN to see what Anderson Cooper would have to say about the attacks. At last, he found it in time to see a breaching shark being replayed.

“That’s insane,” Specimen 1 said. “Oh my God. Do you think he’s okay?”

“I guess we’ll find out, if he can get to a phone. It looks like they’re trying to organize them to check in.”

A URL was flashed along the bottom of the screen, a site where triathletes who had checked in after the accident could be identified.

I clicked to the URL on my phone and as CNN babbled on in the background, I repeatedly refreshed the screen. Specimen 2’s name never appeared.

“You’re so cold,” Specimen 1 said suddenly. “He was our friend. I know you didn’t like him much near the end, but you’re the one that brought him here.”

“Yes, I brought him here. Don’t you think I’m in shock? I just might have possibly seen my lover, a man I did truly love, just get eaten by a shark. Pretty random for city folk, don’t you think?”

“I bet you had something to do with this. How many times does this happen? Probably never, or they wouldn’t keep having this race, would they? I bet you put those sharks there.”

Specimen 1 went and retrieved another beer from the fridge and sat back down.

“How on earth would I put sharks in San Francisco Harbor from Toronto?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Maybe you just picked up a phone and had the Mafia dump some sharks there.”

“No wonder you’re a writer, you have a pretty vivid imagination. It was a horrible accident, that’s all.”

“Yes, a horrible accident,” he muttered.

We watched CNN a bit longer and we didn’t speak of it again.

Specimen 4

It took me a few days between my professional obligations to soundproof one of the larger attic rooms and install some wiring. The ceiling had been bare so it wasn’t too hard to hammer the boards onto the beams. Most of the room was of a sufficient height that he could play the guitar as long as he didn’t go all Pete Townshend with a jumping windmill. I hauled speaker systems up. Luckily, modern technology weighed a couple of thousand pounds less than speakers, amps and other gear of ancient times. It truly was a marvel how quickly music technology had shifted even within my own lifetime. I had to install many hidden cameras and microphones, of course.
 

By the time I was finished, the attic was furnished in such a way that it looked like it’d been a studio for at least a decade. Worn couches, guitars on the walls, mic stands, mic, glass case, a violin, several percussion instruments, not to mention a drum kit.

The room was set up so that one end was a small area to resemble a coffee-house stage. The flooring was different, a special black stage flooring. The drum kit was set back, and there was a small lighting grid with little colored lights that you could change with a foot pedal on the drum kit or by switches on a wall panel.

When Specimen 4 entered my attic room his mouth hung open. He walked around, staring into the glass cases at various precious instruments, framed autographs and programs of rock stars, and didn’t notice how I double-locked the door behind him.

I clicked a switch on a wall panel beside the door. Music filled the room, a steady beat of primal drumming, the echoing twang of electric guitars. Of course it was specially programmed music created for Specimen 4. I turned it down so that it was merely background ambiance. I indicated a wooden table where he could lay his guitar case. When he set down the case, he looked around some more.

“What’s a scientist doing with such a rocking place?” he finally stammered. “Aren’t you guys all nerdy and stuff?”

“I like to rock out now and again, as do my friends. It’s how we grew up.” I laughed at him and touched his arm.

“Let me watch you play guitar,” I said.

He trembled as he unlatched the case and brought out the guitar. It didn’t strike me that he was nervous about playing for me. No, he was a sensitive musician type and his spidey senses were tingling. His nervousness had nothing to do with his guitar.

“Are you nervous, darling?” I asked him. “How about a beer to calm your nerves?”

His face brightened. “Yes, ma’am.” He nodded.

“Ma’am?” I raised an eyebrow and gave him a doubtful look.

“I mean, thanks, Miriam.”

I went over to the small bar fridge that I’d managed to haul up the stairs with a pulley-lever contraption. My strength gave me more freedom than most. While Specimen 4 tuned his guitar and paced around the small stage area, I opened two beers and watched him. His long, curly hair was a refreshing change and the strumming of his guitar sent chills down my back, and he wasn’t even plugged in yet. I brought him the beer and we set up the frequencies for his guitar to go through my system.

I turned off the background music and then sat behind the drum kit.

“So what do you want to play?” I asked.

“How about ‘Highway to Hell’?” he said.
 

I laughed. “Let’s do it,” I clicked my sticks together and we managed to perform a not-too-crappy version of the old AC/DC anthem. We played a few more songs, drinking several beers in between. I also added other instruments through the various systems. At one point, we sounded like ELO. It was a great amusement and diversion.

Music does create a vibration through the bones that nothing else in life does. Perhaps music was one of the keys that were missing. Yes, I used the music to hypnotize all of them, but perhaps an elixir of genetic musicality was what was required for the cocktail.

We sat on the couch, taking a break from our jam, and stared at the drum kit.

“What do you see happening next for you?” I asked him, running my hand up his thigh towards his crotch.

“You mean, like, in my life?”

“Of course, darling…” My hand cupped his crotch. He smiled and blushed.

“Well, of course it would be great to be a rock star but I see what’s involved. There’s a chance I may get a kick at the can, being in the right place at the right time, but of course, there’s always the whole specter of failure and nothingness mocking me too.”

“Whenever I have moments of self-doubt, I remind myself, if I don’t believe in me, who else is going to believe in me?” I shared with him.

“That’s a good one.”

“That’s how I get through life and that’s why I have dozens of awards for ground-breaking experimentation.”

My hand snaked up his chest, my fingers unbuttoning his shirt. He shifted on the couch, leaning his head back, staring up at the ceiling.

“I need more…” His words slurred and stopped. I looked at his eyes; they were closed. I took the bottle of beer from his hand before he could spill it. He was beginning to snore.

The drug in his beer was producing the required effect and it was going to be all too easy.

I lay him out on the couch. It didn’t take long to remove his clothes. It wasn’t time to implant yet. He had to be programmed with the headset first.
 

Once his brain waves reach a specific frequency, I can add the implants.

The couch back clicked down so that he was on a bed and the couch arms were head- and footboards. Embedded in both sides of the inside paneling of the couch were shackles for his hands and feet.

I cleaned up our mess, put his guitar away and so on, keeping an eye on his vital signs as the headphones piped in the instructions to his cellular structure.

He was so sweet, lying on the couch. Before I shackled him, I crawled on top of him and kissed him. His soft, sweet lips kissed back—he was half-asleep, but not. His hands roamed down my back, feeling my curves beneath my clothes. Even though his eyes remained closed, his body was craving my touch.

I removed my clothes and removed his, careful not to knock the headphones from his ears. It was easy to slide onto his erection. I moved against him, slowly at first, afraid to wake him, but he was in a state of arousal in his sleep. The music was working as he thrust into me.

I sat up more and rode him until I was satisfied. He continued to thrust and we continued to copulate for quite some time. At last, I was exhausted and pulled myself away. Even as I dressed to leave him, he was still thrusting. I decided to turn down the coded music. Perhaps musicians don’t need as strong a pulse there, as they are already so rhythmic. I made notes of the coordinates. He finally settled down and I left him.