Disclaimer: The place mentioned below does exist...or should I say, did exist. It\'s still there, just not as...functional...as it was. Or at least, that\'s what we\'re led to believe...(great, now I\'m gonna have the FBI checking on me!). Don\'t sue me, please!
Ikimashou!
=====
Chapter 7: D.U.M.B.
=====
Camp Hero on the eastern tip Long Island is a tourist attraction; a sprawling national park that shows off the seaside beauty of the area. Not far from the sleepy town of Montauk, the idyllic setting has a very dark and controversial secret under its sandy beaches and marshy woodlands.
A black SUV pulled up to one of the hangars of Montauk Air Force Station. Quite a few people in black military-style uniforms were milling about with clipboards or talking with others. Cortez stepped out of the vehicle and was met by three of the black-clad soldiers, who sharply saluted him
“Right this way, sir.”
The four men entered the hangar, where the remains of a SUV sat. The front end was squarely smashed in, while the back left side was almost non-existent. Cortez examined the damage, taking a long slow walk around it. Once he returned to the other three men, he let out a long whistle.
“Did they survive the crash?”
“Yes, sir,” one of the men answered. “We have the target in a special holding cell. The other woman is in surgery right now. She received extensive damage. The doctors will be with you shortly.”
“Is the target unharmed?”
The three men conferred, then one of them spoke up. “Well, she was...in fact, she had some very serious injuries, but...”
Cortez\' patience was wearing thin. “Well, is she alive or isn\'t she?”
“Her entire torso was crushed,” the man answered nervously, “...but she came back.”
That got the sergeant\'s attention. “So, the rumors are true. Where is she being held?”
“Follow us, sir.” As they left the hangar, Cortez took another look at the wreck. “I\'m surprised the other one survived. I wonder if she\'d be a good candidate.”
The four men piled into an SUV and drove away from the airfield. Taking a little-used road, they drove down into a ditch, which led to a tunnel. Soon they reached a guard station that stood under a sign that read “Deep Underground Military Base – Personnel Only Admitted Beyond This Point”.
Cortez read the sign and laughed. “Please tell me they don\'t use the acronym for this place on anything.”
The driver grinned. “They don\'t—everything\'s spelled out. We don\'t even use USA here!” He showed his credentials to the guard and continued on his way.
After another long series of tunnels, the driver pulled the SUV into a parking spot, and the men filed out. Cortez grimaced as he saw a familiar sign. “\'The Kennel\', huh? I was wondering what Armbrister meant by that.”
“This way, sir.” The driver swiped a key card to unlock the door, and he and Cortez entered, leaving the other two men to guard the outside. He then had the sergeant stand on a spot near a blank wall. “For security purposes, sir.” Cortez nodded and the man took out a small device with which he took the sergeant\'s picture. A small card emerged from the device, which the driver handed to Cortez. “You\'ll need this to get around. It\'s a temporary pass...don\'t lose it under any circumstances.”
“You don\'t have to tell me, kid.” Cortez frowned at the picture, which looked more like a mug shot. “So, where do we go from here?”
“Through that door, and make a right at the first cell. She\'ll be at the end.” As Cortez began to leave, the other man saluted him.
The dour sergeant didn\'t return the salute. Instead he just nodded to the young man. “Don\'t bother doing that here...the rules don\'t apply.”
- - - - -
Naya was the picture of cuteness; a calico cat curled up in a sleepy little ball. Her dreams, however, were anything but cute. She twitched and shuddered from time to time, fighting all kinds of demons in her sleep.
“Awww...is the little kitty having a nightmare?”
The cat opened her black-covered eye to see Cortez standing about ten feet away from her. “You...you look familiar, and not in a good way,” she said groggily. Taking a look around, she was in an unfurnished cube of a room, a clear opening on one side that Naya knew was anything but open. “Where am I? And where\'s Annette?” She uncoiled herself and tried to stand, but stumbled to the hard ground.
“Don\'t look at me,” Cortez said with a smirk. “I just got here. I wanted to see how you were doing...actually, I\'m surprised you\'re alive at all. How did you manage that, by the way?”
Naya turned her back on the man. “I\'m a cat, stupid. We always come back.” She felt this man wasn\'t going to give her the answers she needed, so he wasn\'t worth wasting her time with idle chatter.
“I\'ve killed a few cats in my day, and trust me, they never came back.”
If that was an attempt at intimidation, Naya didn\'t notice...better yet, she just didn\'t care. “They have...you\'re just too much of an idiot to notice. Now, if you\'re not going to tell me where I am or where my friend is, could you please leave me the hell alone?”
“I can answer one of your questions,” Cortez replied. “The other one, well, that\'s in God\'s hands...as well as the butchers here.”
The cat\'s head turned around quickly. “What do you mean by that?”
“Considering the condition of the vehicle you were both in, I expected to be collecting two corpses.” He took a long look at Naya as he spoke. “You don\'t seem to have a scratch on you! Is that a result of your...resurrection?”
It took a moment for the context of Cortez\' words to sink in the dulled cat\'s brain, but when it did, Naya\'s eyes went wide with horror. “IS SHE ALIVE??” She rushed the open end of the cell, only to be rebuffed by what seemed to be bulletproof glass. “Tell me...TELL ME!”
“From what I\'ve heard, yeah, she\'s still with us...but barely.” Cortez tapped the glass a couple times and smiled. “Technology is something else, isn\'t it? Carbo-fiberglass. Can withstand a .357 magnum at point-blank range. I\'ve read about this, but to see it in person...amazing!”
Naya was on all fours now, her fur standing on end and her tail puffed. “If you bastards do anything to her, so help me you\'ll have hell to pay!”
Cortez let out a laugh that only managed to anger the calico. “What are you going to do? Scratch our eyes out? Pee on our furniture?” He caught his breath, then continued. “Besides, they\'re trying to save her...for now. I\'m sure there are a lot of questions they want to ask her about you. After they get their answers, however...” He let the comment hang right there.
“I\'ve got to get out of here...Take me to where she is! Right now!!”
“Sorry, kitty, no can do.” The sergeant noticed a clipboard on the wall just outside the cell. “Hmmm...seems you\'re due for an interview yourself in about an hour. I hope for your sake that your mind is clear enough to provide the information they seek. I\'d hate to see what would happen if you were...difficult...in any way.” He put the clipboard back on its holder and started towards the exit. “Oh well, there\'s nothing more I can do here until they\'re finished with either you or your partner. I guess I\'ll see what the rest of this place is like. I\'ve heard so many stories...”
“Wait! Wait a minute!” Naya watched as Cortez came back, a sadistic smile on his face. She had to get some information out of this man, so she thought it would be best to try an cooperate with him...if even for a little while. “Why aren\'t you surprised that I can talk?”
“Should I be?” Cortez\' nonchalant reply caught Naya by surprise. “I\'ve seen some strange things in my time, and you being in this place just makes perfect sense.”
“What is \'this place\', anyway?”
“Welcome to Camp Hero...where you\'ll probably be spending the rest of your lives.”
“Camp...Hero? Wait, you don\'t mean...” Naya had heard the rumors, and was one of the first ones to believe them. Considering her history, she had little reason not to. “It makes sense now...\'the best place to hide something is in plain sight\', right?”
“I heard you were a smart cat...I\'m glad you live up to your reputation!” Cortez leaned up against a wall, finding this conversation suddenly more interesting than an unguided tour through a secret military base. “So I don\'t have to tell you about the experiments that have been going on here, right?”
Naya sat upright, keeping her eyes on the man. “No, you don\'t. Officially the experiments—if they took place at all—ended in the 1980s. Unoffcially, there\'s no telling what they\'re doing down here.”
“You name it, they\'ve tried it. Time travel, biological weaponry, alien techonology, intraplanetary wormholes...there\'s even a theory that Nicholai Tesla\'s still alive and working around here somewhere, though, he\'d be well over 120 years old if that\'s true...”
“Or at least 80 if you account for the 40-plus-year gap due to time travel.” Naya thought for a moment, her tail twitching. “Do you know what kind of experiments they\'re working on at the moment, and do they have anything to do with Plum Island?”
“I\'d love to find out, but no...that\'s classified, even for me.”
“Forget I mentioned it, then,” the cat got up from her seat and took another much further away from the plexiglass opening. “What\'s going to happen to me now?”
“I was supposed to take you to Capt. Armbrister, but since the boys and girls here want a kitty to play with, I\'ll leave you for them. They\'d love to see the fruits of their labor.” Cortez saw the puzzled look on the Naya\'s feline face. “Oh, you didn\'t know? According to the folder I have on you, this is where you were born.” He retreived the clipboard from its holder and removed a sheet from it, putting it low against the glass so Naya could read it. “Check the vital statistics...see anything famiiliar?”
The cat returned to the glass and scanned the page. “And here I thought I was born in Brooklyn.” She read further down on the page and saw some notes that brought a slight smile to her face. She kept that to herself. “Thank you...Mister...”
“Sergeant Cortez.”
“Yes, Sergeant Cortez. Thank you. Now, if you would be so kind as to tell me where Annette is, I\'d greatly appreciate it.”
“Well, since you asked so politely...I don\'t know.” Cortez let out a little laugh at the cat\'s sudden flash of anger. “Honestly, I know she\'s here, but I couldn\'t tell you exactly were. Just be happy she\'s alive—if she still is—and if you\'re lucky, you\'ll probably see her again. Now if you excuse me...” He turned to go to the exit, but paused for a moment. “One more thing...can you do me a favor?”
“What?”
“Could you...turn into a human for me? I\'ve seen pictures of your face, but I wanted to see you in person.”
Naya let out a very disgusted sigh, but tried her best to keep a straight face. “As I would be completely naked if I complied with your request, Sergeant Cortez, I humbly decline. I may be nothing more than a laboratory experiment to you, and right now I am your prisoner, but I still have my pride.”
Cortez simply shrugged his shoulders. “Oh well, so much for that.” He went back to the exit. “On that rather disappointing note, I really have to go. I have a report to file, and someone I have to see...something that must be taken care of. It was nice meeting you, Naya. I had hoped to capture you personally, but a win is a win. Enjoy your lives.” With that, he exited the room.
Once again, Naya was left with her thoughts. While she beat herself up furiously for getting Annette involved in this whole mess—and probably costing the reporter her life—she was at least hopeful that she\'d see the blonde again...especially since the page from the clipboard said they were both to be taken to Plum Island once Annette was able to be transported.
- - - - -
“Are you ready, sir?”
“Yeah. Take me to the other woman.” Capturing Naya had been quite a torturous ordeal for Cortez; after talking to the cat, he felt a bit sorry for her. At first, he saw her as a freak to be scorned like the rest of the freaks The Zoo had turned out. Something about Naya touched him in a different way: maybe it was her politeness, once her claws were sheathed; maybe it was the overwhelming concern she had for Annette, a woman who seemed to be much more than a pet owner or a conspiring partner. Maybe it was the fact that she wasn\'t in control of her own destiny, and that all this was happening to her, rather than her being the cause of some overall problem. As much as it bothered the man to believe it, Cortez had to admit he actually liked Naya.
The driver took Cortez to another part of the underground compound, this time an open area with a surgical tent and lights set up in the middle of it. “Please have a seat over there, sir.” The driver pointed to a series of padded folding chairs not far from the makeshift operating room.
As he sat, a surgeon came out from behind the tent. Cortez had planned to see the man covered in blood, or at least stained with it. The other man\'s gloves and smock were practically spotless. “Sgt. Cortez, I pressume,” the man said.
“Correct. What is her condition?”
The doctor removed his surgical mask and measured his words carefully. “If I had to put it in a word, it\'d be \'miraculous\'. She had so much damage to her body I\'d have thought saving any of her vital organs—even her brain—would have been impossible. But, well...come see for yourself.” He led Cortez into the tent, bypassing the scrub room section of the tent completely. “She\'s unconscious, but other than that...”
There was blood all over the floor, yet there was none at all anyplace else. On the operating table, Annette lay naked to the world, without a single scratch or surgical stitch on her. Her hair, which had been curly in the video clips Cortez had seen of her, was not straight and longer than usual, surrounding a face that had an almost angelic glow about it.
“Are you sure this is the same woman?” Cortez asked.
“Definitely,” the surgeon replied. “I brought her in from the ambulance myself. At the time, she had serious lacerations to her skull, deep abrasions to her face and arms, her rib cage was in shambles from the force of the steering column being jammed into her torso, and both her legs were broken. I won\'t even get into how her heart was literally torn up, or how it took three of us to figure out what organ part belonged to each other. All of a sudden, things just...sorted themselves out, like her body was putting itself back together again. I\'ve seen some pretty strange things here, but that had to be the creepiest thing I\'ve ever seen.” By this time the doctor was visibly shaking; so much so that Cortez sat him down so the man could regain his composure.
“Did you do the regular battery of tests on her...blood panels, x-rays, CT scans...”
The doctor grasped his hands, trying to get a grip on sanity. “We didn\'t have time...the EMTs got the vitals, but once she came in, we started trying to work on her...and that\'s when it started.” The man leaned forward, beckoning Cortez closer. “I\'ve done some things here I\'ll never mention, but that? I don\'t even know how that\'s humanly possible!”
Cortez sighed, then looked the man square in the eye. “It\'s not...it\'s not humanly possible.” He backed a step away from the doctor, then looked at Annette. “Get a full blood work-up on her. Hell, do all the tests. I have a feeling we\'ll turn up something we shouldn\'t.”
“Yes, sir,” the doctor said. He stood on wobbly knees for a moment, stabilized himself, then went back to the surgical tent and told his assistants to perform the necessary tests.
Cortez pulled out his cell. “Owl Unit, check!”
“Owl Unit, reporting.” The reception was fuzzy, but Constanza\'s voice came through. “Shall I report the capture to Capt. Armbrister, sir?”
“Not yet, Constanza...we have a situation—a change of plans. I need all the information you have on Annette Stanhope.”
A bit of silence filled the air before Constanza replied. “The yellow tag, sir? I sent you information on her earlier. There didn\'t seem to be anything of interest, as I recall.”
“That\'s because we only considered her as an ancillary target. We only scratched the surface of her life,” Cortez commented. “Get me every bit of detail you can on her—family background, where she went to school, who she dated, what she likes to snack on at midnight, what her favorite brand of tampon is...everything!” The sergeant noticed he was clutching the phone so hard his hand began to cramp up. He took a deep breath before continuing. “Leave no stone unturned. She suddenly became a very interesting person to me...very interesting, indeed!”
“You\'ll have the information shortly, sir. If I may ask, what is about Miss Stanhope that has made her such a priority?”
Cortez stared at the phone for a moment, then laughed. “Don\'t tell me you\'re jealous, Constanza?”
Muffled laughter could be heard on the other end of the line, along with a loud \'whack\'. “Information will be forthcoming soon. Owl Unit, out!”
Cortez put the phone in his pocket. “I\'ll take that as a yes.”
- - - - -
Naya paced back and forth in her cell, waiting for the interrogation that was euphemistically called an \'interview\' on the sheet Cortez showed her. She had questions of her own, and hoped whoever was conducting the \'interview\' was more forthcoming than the sergeant.
Suddenly two trays slid out from one of the side walls. One had a plate of tuna and a fork, next to a glass of water. The other had a pair of orange pajamas. As the trays clicked into place, a voice came over a loudspeaker. It was a male voice, without accent or malice...very business-like. “Feel free to change into your human form, and use what we have offered for you.”
“Turn off the lights first, you pervert!” Naya snapped back.
“Ah, it\'s good to see you have kept an air of modesty about you, Naya.” The lights of the cell went off, and the translucent glass opening became more opaque, giving the cat a measure of privacy.
Once she regained human form, she quickly grabbed the pajamas and donned them, surprised at the precise fit. “Okay, you can turn the lights back on, now!”
The room returned to its original state, and the drawer which held the pajamas slid back into the wall. “Please enjoy the tuna...unless you would like something else. Some pastry, perhaps?”
Being she hadn\'t eaten in awhile, and the transformation burns a lot of energy, Naya wolfed down the tuna with gusto, taking time to breathe and drink a little water.
The voice waited until Naya was finished before she restarted the conversation. “You might be happy to know that your friend made it through surgery.”
“Annette! How is she?”
“Doing quite well,” the voice said, expressing a hint of surprise. “We were worried about how you would take the news of her death, but that was an unnecessary fear, as it turned out.”
Naya\'s eyes were wide with happiness. “When can I see her?”
“We\'ll let you know. Right now she\'s recouperating. Even so, when she revives, we\'ll have a few questions for her. When we\'re done, you can see her...but not for long.”
The white-haired woman didn\'t like that last part. “What do you mean by that?”
“We\'ve had a change in plans that necessitate holding you both for longer than we had anticipated.” The voice did not waver at all, which Naya took as a sign that something that something significant had happened...something they had experienced before, otherwise there would have been a bit of hesitation or surprise.
“What are you planning on doing with her?” she asked sharply.
“I\'m sorry, that\'s classified. Like I said, just be happy that you\'ll see her soon. Now, let us begin our interview, shall we?”
“The hell with you! I\'m not answering any questions until I see Annette!”
“And you won\'t see Miss Stanhope unless you answer our questions. So, you see, we are at a bit of a standoff...and you are in no position to dictate demands to us. I suggest you comply.” The voice showed a bit of emotion for the first time. It was angry, almost taunting.
Naya took stock of her position, and backed down. Making sure Annette was alright was her highest priority, and she wasn\'t going to do that by being obstinant. “Fine. What do you want to know?”
“That\'s better,” the voice said, regaining the more stoic tone it had previously. “Now, we shall begin. How did you escape the power plant?”
“I walked out the front door,” Naya said sarcastically.
“Please cooperate. I repeat: How did you escape the power plant?”
“I repeat. I walked out the front door.” This time, there was no sarcasm in Naya\'s voice.
“You mean to tell me you just left the building, and no one stopped you?”
“Correct. Usually I was allowed to leave the compound for an hour or two, but only with an escort. While that was very confiniing at first, I found ways of putting a comfortable distance between us while still complying with the rule. One day I managed to put enough distance between myself and my chaperone and, well, I never came back.”
“Interesting,” the voice said, in pretty much the same way psychologists say \'interesting\' when they\'re not really listening to you. “What made you want to escape? Were you being mistreated?”
Naya looked at the ceiling incredulously. “Are you insane? Who would not want to escape a place where you\'re watched 24 hours a day? Where your every move is controlled and catalogued, and what little companionship you have is stripped away from you at the worst possible moment?”
“Ah...you\'re referring to the incident with,” the interviewer was interrupted by the sound of shuffling papers. “Megumi Morisato, was it? Sad that had to happen, but it was a matter of protecting our investment. Even if Japan is our ally, we couldn\'t have you coupling with her and leaving the country. You are, after all, American property.”
“Excuse me? I hate to break this to you, but my body belongs to me and me alone! Hell, both of my bodies belong to me! If anything, all you people got was the privilege of picking my brain and screwing with my life!” Naya was red in the face and panting for air. She noticed that the air conditioner had been turned off. “What the hell are you doing now, some kind of psychological torture?”
“Sharp of you to notice,” the voice said. Cool air started to flow in the room once again. “It appears our training has not gone to waste.”
“You\'re right about that, whoever you are! I will get out of here, and once I find Annette, we\'ll both be done with you!”
“Sure, sure,” the voice said placatively. “In the meantime, I have another question. What made you want to turn on the power plant? You could have just run away and never have to deal with them again.”
Naya let out a big sigh. “It\'s common sense, stupid! I didn\'t want what happened to me to happen to anyone else...animal or human. Once I gained human thought, I learned that what they were doing was wrong, and I wanted to find a way to stop it. I knew I couldn\'t do it myself, so I needed help.”
“Wrong? Why would you say that? Thanks to the research we\'ve been able to do over the past eighty years, we\'ve been able to help mankind in a variety of ways. From advances in techonolgy and science, to the latest, almost-daily breakthroughs in genetics. None of that would have been possible without places like this. Why would you want to destroy that?”
Naya hung her head, shaking it in disbelief. “I guess it\'s true what they say: \'the road to hell is paved with good intentions.\' You never once stopped to think about what the effect of your efforts were on both mankind and the animal kingdom, did you? All the people and animals that had died in your trials and tests, in the name of science...each of them were just a number on a file!” She found a spot near the wall and sat down, bringing her knees to her chest. “I know all too well about things like that...from both sides.”
“Ah, yes...I see that you worked on a project during your second life. Too bad it didn\'t bear fruit, but you\'ll be glad to know we have found the problems you were having a couple decades ago, and now it is a success. The ability to regenerate body parts is a long way from the liver trying to repair itself or the heart building bypass capillaries. I must say I\'m impressed that you would even attempt it.”
“Too bad it didn\'t work,” Naya said sadly. “So many people could be helped with that gene therapy.”
“Not to mention the cost-effectiveness of such a technique in the medical community, and of course, the military applications such a treatment would have!” The voice almost sounded ecstatic. “I\'m sure a grateful country thanks you!”
“What the hell are you talking about? The project was a failure.”
“Well, yes. In your hands, it was a failure...only because you were too occupied in romance to pay closer attention to what you were doing. We followed up on your work, and have had quite a bit of success with it...especially in the last 20 years.”
The researcher in Naya wanted to strangle that voice for stealing her work; the rest of her just resigned herself to the fact that, well, this was how the company operated. All intellectual projects were the property of The Zoo. No two ways about it. “Yay,” she sighed. “I\'m happy for you. Now, are we done? I\'m tired, and I want to see Annette. I\'ve done what you\'ve asked of me. Please honor my request.”
“Well, I am a man of my word,” the voice said. “I will grant your request. We will bring her to you as soon as she wakes up. I think she will be as happy to see you as you are anxious to see her.”
“Thank you.” Naya put her head on her knees, planning on getting some much-needed rest after such a tiring \'interview\'. “By the way...to whom am I speaking? I think it\'s rude for you to address me, when I don\'t know your name.”
“Right you are, Naya Attaturk. I do owe you that. I am Peter Tesla. Pleased to meet you.”
=====
End of Chapter 7
=====