The Collective Protocol (23 page)

TWENTY-NINE

Claxons blared all through the basement and the emergency lights began to flash rapidly. “What’s happening?” Brigadier Patel demanded.

“I… I don’t know,” stuttered Gavin. “The alarm systems on this building are designed to go off only in the event of a major emergency. Even a simple broken window will not cause them to sound.”

“Bring up the security footage!”

“Should we bring her out of the system, general?” Lillian asked.

“No, I want to see what we’re dealing with before we risk pulling her,” Patel replied. “She’s so close to completing the first mission; I want those people dead!”

“Is that wise? What if something happens to her while she’s in there?” Lillian demanded. “I can’t save her if she goes into shock while the power is fluctuating like this.”

The general sneered at her, “Your girlfriend will be fine. Do as I say!”

Lillian glared at him and rested a comforting hand on top of her lover’s pale fingers.

Overhead, the image on the monitor changed from Paige’s point of view to the black and white security camera footage. Everything seemed to be happening at once. There was someone in her apartment, a small force of invaders fired into the lobby from the stairwell, fires raged unchecked on the 3rd floor. It was chaos and the general bellowed one word that echoed through the chamber, “Americans!”

*****

Greg led the charge from the cafeteria towards the lobby. They had at least five guards to deal with who were stationed there before they could move into the basement and whatever lay beyond.

Before they even rounded the landing, bullets flew in the team’s direction. One hit Janice in her exposed shin and shattered her tibia, sending her falling forward down the stairs. Dave lunged after her and the defenders fired repeatedly into their bodies. The two of them tumbled down the stairs and came to rest on the tile floor of the lobby. Dave tried to roll in front of her to shield her from the hail of gunfire, but he was hit again before he even made it to his knees. He died beside Janice and she followed him into the afterlife.

“Grenade!” Scott yelled as he shot a high explosive round from the barrel mounted under his rifle. Everyone scrambled back up the stairs as the projectile exploded, sending shrapnel everywhere. “One more!” he screamed again as he cocked the launcher and plunked another grenade into the main lobby.

The screams of the men as they lay twisted and injured seemed more inhumane to Reagan than what her own powers did to people. At least when she used her abilities the lives were snuffed out in the blink of an eye, not the prolonged suffering felt by the guards below. It was almost too much for her to bear and she began to retreat into herself.

Then she felt her sister. She didn’t understand if it was the proximity to her or the continuing evolution of the powers within her, but she
felt
her sister’s presence nearby. It was as if an old familiar friend suddenly was revealed to her and all of her sister’s memories, pains, hopes, dreams and desires were opened to her mind. The overwhelming sorrow of her early life knocked Reagan backwards onto her butt several steps above the firefight.

Paige had suffered terribly throughout her life. In addition to the terrible things that had been done to her in the foster homes that she lived in, her pale, sickly appearance ensured that she was constantly bullied by the other children at school. She’d found the commissioner when she was a teenager and he was the nicest person that Paige had ever met. The two of them experimented with her newfound powers and hatched the scheme to have him elevated in the Canadian government. Then they’d met Brigadier General Patel and the Collective Protocol was developed to systematically destroy the United States.

Reagan couldn’t stop herself from crying. Their experiences had been so terribly different. She couldn’t even begin to imagine the resilience that her sister must have had in order to have survived everything. It was a miracle that she hadn’t taken her own life somewhere along the way.

She pitied her sister. It wasn’t her fault that she did the things that she did. Others had twisted her into this monster, but Reagan knew that they were cut from the same cloth and Paige had to have a good soul, it just needed reawakening. She’d make sure that the others didn’t kill her. They’d find a way to work through the problems together and become close friends, like they should have been.

Reagan stood up and walked purposefully down the stairs. She thought of a shield to lead the way that was impenetrable to gunfire and the air shimmered with the presence of her desire. She pushed her way past her three remaining teammates, walking alone and unafraid into the lobby.

The one remaining guard unleashed a full magazine of bullets from the submachine gun that he held, but the lead expended its energy on her shield and fell to the floor at her feet. She continued walking as Greg tucked up behind her and fired through her shield at the defender. The rounds passed unmolested through the energy field and impacted with the guard’s body, killing him.

Greg and Scott peeled off and finished off the guards who were still alive while Reagan tried to open the door to the basement. It was locked, but she focused her energy and pushed against the door. She used too much as the heavy steel door flew backwards off its hinges and hit the wall, then tumbled away down the metal stairs.

“Reagan, wait!” Juan shouted as he limped across the lobby. He’d taken shrapnel from the grenades and his thigh dripped with blood. “We don’t know what’s down there. Let the field operators lead the way.”

“I know what’s down there. My sister’s there and I have to be the first one to reach her, before Greg does.”

*****

In Johnsonville, South Carolina the entire population milled about the high school gymnasium, waiting. The hipster that Paige controlled drove a fully-restored El Camino full of the supplies from the Piggly Wiggly northward along the Georgetown Highway. The boy and girl from the store rode on top of it all in the small cargo area.

As she drove, the car maneuvered slowly around abandoned cars along the road. She’d made everyone stop what they were doing and immediately walk to the high school.
Maybe I should have thought that through and just told everyone to go to the school instead of walk there,
she thought and mentally slapped herself in the forehead. She’d been so preoccupied with the general’s demands that she forgot that the people she controlled did exactly as they were told.

Some type of annoying noise came from the radio and she pushed hard at the power button. The damn thing wouldn’t stop playing the same sound over and over. It was like… like a fire alarm. Was there an emergency at the Protocol’s headquarters? She pulled the El Camino into the parking lot and stopped it right in front of the gymnasium entrance.

The alarm continued to sound in the background of her subconscious. She began to pull away from the town, but thought better of it. Without a specific order, the people would come out from under her spell in a matter of minutes, maybe sooner since the layer of control was spread so thin in order for her to cover every person in town. She sent the hipster into the gym with a double handful of bleach jugs.

She couldn’t shake the feeling that something was wrong back at the building. Then she suddenly remembered that she thought there was something amiss when she first left at the start of the mission. There was a presence… It tickled the back of her mind and she lost control of the townspeople as she tried to focus all her energy on what it was. It didn’t take her long to work it out.

Reagan!
That was what was wrong with the headquarters! When she’d felt that something was wrong, it was because everything was too
ordinary
. The normal sounds and feel of the building had been absent. Reagan was there, she was sure of it. There was no other explanation for it and now the alarms were going off.

She fully disengaged from the townspeople and shot skyward, then west towards Calgary. The alarms got louder as her mind came out of the deep sleep that she’d put herself under. Her aura closed in on the city she now called home and then the headquarters was below her. It registered slightly with her that a rope stretched from the construction site next door to her home.

As she shot down into her body she was overwhelmed by the acrid stench of burning fabric and the unmistakable mark of powers similar to her own. She pushed herself up from the chair but someone lay across her, holding her down.

Paige pushed gently against the lab coat and cried out when Lillian’s bullet-riddled body fell lifelessly to the floor. She stared in horror at the woman she loved. She’d sacrificed herself as a human shield over Paige’s unconscious body. Lillian had been the gentlest woman she’d ever been with and the telepath had allowed herself to hope for a future with her.

She frantically sent her aura across the room to find Gavin. She found her adoptive father on the observation deck. He lay against the railing clutching his chest, which was riddled with holes.

From the corner of her eye, she saw a flash of purple hair and screamed her hatred for the girl who had ruined her entire life.

THIRTY

Reagan and Juan crouched behind a large metal carrying case on the observation deck while Greg exchanged gunfire with someone in the pit below. Scott lay at the base of the stairs frantically trying to apply a tourniquet to his arm and still stay low enough to avoid the incoming gunfire. Somehow the entire lower half of his left arm was missing.

The fires that started on the 3rd floor continued to burn and the grenades that Scott fired before he went down the stairs had started a fire down in the basement also. The smoke from above drifted down through the open stairwell and mingled with the smoke trying to escape to create a hazardous toxic mixture.

“What do you mean you can’t use your magic?” Greg screamed at her while he changed the magazine in his rifle.

“I don’t know. I… It’s blocked somehow!” she answered back.

The operative set his jaw and nodded. He hadn’t expected help from her in the first place, so the fact that she’d given it several times was just an added bonus.
How the hell did I get in this situation?
Greg asked himself.

Six weeks ago, he and his team—almost all of them dead now—were enjoying a cushy tropical assignment monitoring and advising a separatist organization in Venezuela. Next thing they knew, they were sent to Canada to watch a girl while they froze their butts off. He pulled the pin on a grenade and chucked it over his shoulder towards the person firing at him.

As soon as the grenade exploded he stood and fired into the pit below. No further movement below told him that it was safe to go. If she’d suddenly lost control of her powers, it was up to him to shoot Paige and end this mess.

Greg ran at a crouch to where Juan sat. “You ready, Quintana?”

The FBI agent glanced at Reagan and nodded. “Yeah, let’s finish this.”

The two of them raced down the stairs, off the observation deck, to the wreckage below.

*****

Reagan watched Greg run down the stairs and Juan limp after him as quickly as he could go and then peaked around the opposite side of the box she hid behind. An older man sat slumped in a row of chairs that overlooked the operation below. He’d been shot several times in the chest, his breathing shallow and pained.

He noticed her hair sticking out and said, “Paige! Paige, get out of here. Save yourself.”

He must have been delirious if he thought she was Paige. He raised his hand weakly and said, “I love you, Paige. Patel has another machine that suppresses your powers. You… You have to leave.”

Reagan began to shake her head, but a voice behind her said, “I don’t care what the general has done… father. I’ll kill this bitch with my bare hands.”

The violet-haired girl turned just in time to catch a fist across the jaw. Her vision went black at the edges and little bursts of electric light shimmered on the periphery. Before she could recover, Paige jumped on top of her and slammed her head onto the metal grating of the deck.

The back of her head exploded in pain and she almost blacked out from the force of the two blows. Reagan knew that if she allowed herself to slip away that she’d never wake up again. She needed to talk to Paige, work through their issues before the psychopath killed her.

Paige wrapped her fingers around her neck and squeezed tightly. Reagan gripped her sister’s sinuous forearms and tried desperately to pull them off of her, but the girl was too strong. She kicked upwards in desperation and her knee impacted jarringly against Paige’s pubic bone.

She wailed in pain and Reagan kneed her again. This time Paige let go of her throat and fell to the side clutching her crotch in agony. Reagan sat up and took a ragged breath. “Why… Why do you hate me?” she gasped.

“You’ve taken everything from me!” Paige screamed. “You killed Lillian and you killed Gavin. I’m alone again. I hate you!”

Reagan saw her twin spring towards her and rolled out of the way. Paige’s face impacted against the side of the box that Reagan and Juan had hid behind when Greg threw his last grenade. She pushed herself up onto her hands and knees, still trying to catch her breath.

Paige turned towards her. The telepath’s face was bloodied and her eyes blazed with hatred. Reagan knew that any hopes that she’d had that her sister wasn’t insane and could be convinced to stop were gone. “You privileged, spoiled brat! You’ve always taken everything from me. You even stole the nutrients that I needed to have a normal life from me in the womb! I was born sickly and diseased because of your greed. It’s—”

“Paige, stop!” Reagan pleaded. “I didn’t steal anything from you. It was a freak accident of nature.”

“Liar!” Paige shrieked and once again dove at her sister. Her nails scratched down both sides of Reagan’s face and blood spurted from the eight jagged lines that ran from her forehead to her jaw.

“Not so pretty and perfect anymore, are you bitch?” her sister taunted. “I’m going to shred you into a million pieces. That controlling, murderous jerk Patel may have found a way to shut down my powers, but I’m stronger than you are. I can already tell that your life of luxury has made you weak!”

Paige sat heavily on her chest and jabbed her thumb into Reagan’s eye. If she pushed too much harder, Reagan was sure that she’d burst the easily-damaged orb. Her hand slid down to her belt and grasped the asp baton. She tried to twist her face away while she flicked the baton open and swung as hard as she could manage into the side of the crazy woman.

Paige yelped and pulled her hands from Reagan’s face. Reagan swung once again, impacting with her sister’s wrist. The bones made a sickening noise as the heavy metal bar crushed them, causing her hand to hang uselessly from the end of her arm.

Paige stared at her useless wrist in shock and then refocused her hate-filled eyes on Reagan. The blood flowed uncontrolled from the scratches on her face as her body struggled to counteract her hemophilia and she knew that his needed to end quickly or she risked passing out from blood loss.

Gunfire once again rang out and shouts erupted as a piece of machinery below exploded, drawing their attention towards the pit. Reagan immediately felt the difference in the air. The gadget that had suppressed her powers must have been the thing that exploded. She pushed the shield out from herself and Paige went flying like a rag doll across the deck, once again impacting the metal box.

“You’re gonna pay for that!” Paige screamed and immediately, gunfire started pounding into the railing near Reagan.

She instinctively dove away from the pit below and threw up the shield once more. Rounds impacted against the shield’s energy and she noticed cracks forming along it.
How is a shield made of energy cracking?
she asked herself.

Paige cackled like someone in a mental institution and pointed with her uninjured hand. “Oh, this is too good! You’re powers aren’t even strong enough to really do anything. I’ve seen that happen before. I used to be weak, just like you, and I would crack the minds of those I controlled. Now, I’m the master!”

Gunfire raked along the shield and Reagan turned her head to see both Juan and Greg standing at the top of the stairs shooting at her. Neither wore any expression whatsoever.

She sent the shield pulsing outward and they both went flying over the railing. She and Paige ran towards each other and Reagan swung the baton into her sister’s side as hard as she could. Paige grunted, but closed her upper arm down on the asp and twisted her upper body away causing the baton to fly from her grip.

Paige pulled it from under her arm and raised it above her head. “I hate you!” she shrieked and brought the baton downwards.

Reagan’s powers burst out in a desperate attempt to stop the blow, but the baton was simply deflected and slammed into her clavicle. She cried out as pain greater than anything she’d ever experienced overtook her. Paige’s maniacal grin revealed blood-covered teeth and she brought the weapon above her head once more.

“Please, don’t do this,” Reagan pleaded and turned her head away from the blow.

“Too late,” her sister whispered and swung downward again.

The baton never landed and Reagan looked up in time to see Paige stagger sideways. Four tranquilizer darts stuck out of her back. “Wha? Whazz goin’ on?” Paige muttered sleepily and turned towards the doorway. “Jimmie! How could…”

She fell sideways onto the metal decking. Jimmie dropped the silenced tranquilizer rifle and ran down the stairs to Reagan. “Oh my God, are you okay?”

“I can’t use my arm,” Reagan admitted. “We need to get out of here before the place collapses.”

“Where is everyone else?” he shouted over the roar of the electrical fire in the pit below.

“I don’t know. Juan and Greg went over the edge.”

“I’m here!” Juan said as he stumbled up the stairs. “Greg is dead. He broke his neck in the fall.”

Reagan’s hand flew to her mouth and Juan’s eyes flashed, telling her to keep her mouth shut about being the cause of their fall. “Is she dead?” Juan asked, indicating the source of all the pain and suffering.

“She’s tranquilized,” Jimmie said right as Paige began twitching. “Get behind me, Reagan!”

The telepath’s entire body began to shake and spittle flew from her mouth as her body attempted to gasp for air. She’d been hit with too much of the sedative and it was shutting down her organs.

“Do something, she’s dying!” Reagan screamed.

“There’s nothing you can do,” a weak voice called from beside the staircase. “That much tranq and she’s done for… Surprised she didn’t go into immediate shock.”

“Scott!” Juan shouted and limped over to help the operative to his feet. The two of them hobbled over to Reagan and Jimmie as an ear-splitting shriek of metal rending made everyone look up at the ceiling. The intense heat from all the fires had weakened the building’s already compromised metal support structure.

“We need to go, NOW!” Jimmie shouted and pulled Reagan gently to her feet, avoiding the paralyzed side of her body. They staggered towards the stairs and a single shot rang out in the room.

Reagan turned back to see Juan holster his pistol and blood oozing from behind Paige’s ear. “Just to be sure,” he yelled and helped Scott up the stairs.

*****

The four of them made it through the lobby and in the distance they could hear fire trucks and emergency vehicles racing their way. “How are we going to explain our way out of this?” Jimmie asked.

“We don’t. This was a one-way mission,” Juan replied stoically. “We stopped Paige from causing any more damage, now it will be up to the American people to overcome what’s happened to them.”

“If this went all the way to the top, we’ll never be seen alive again,” Scott stated. “The U.S. will deny any knowledge of our activities and we’ll likely be killed in some type of accident long before we ever see the inside of a court room.”

The screech of tires turning a corner caused everyone to look up the block in time to see the team’s van speeding towards them. Ryan slammed on the brakes and smoke filled the air as the vehicle came to a stop in front of them. A woman that no one recognized opened the sliding back door and shouted, “Get in!”

They didn’t need to be told twice and piled in. The van began moving even before the door was closed. They sped north and turned onto Riverfront Avenue. Ryan pulled over respectfully to allow the Mountie’s patrol cars to speed by in the opposite direction.

They worked their way out of the city and drove north to Edmonton and then east into Saskatchewan. Around 4 a.m. they pulled off the road near a small airport in North Battleford. Ryan drove the van around the back side of the terminal and made one more call on the team’s cell phone.

Thirty minutes later a black C-130 airplane touched down on the tarmac and they drove the van through the fence. As the plane came to a stop, the back ramp dropped and Ryan drove the van inside. He set the parking brake and crew members frantically chained the vehicle down. They had to get airborne and out of Canadian airspace as soon as possible.

Reagan smiled at the unique feeling of sitting inside a vehicle that rode as cargo when the wheels lifted off and the plane banked towards the freedom of home.

They’d done it. They put a stop to Paige, but could they stop the madness that she’d begun from spreading?