“Agent!” Caleb called out. “Are you… you?”
The man looked at the camera curiously, then down to the pile of bodies around him.
The last agent shot still struggled to sit up, with three bullets in his chest. Water spooled from his nostrils.
And Caleb whispered to Phoebe from the side of his mouth. “Can you RV him?”
“Just doing it,” she said back, eyes fluttering. “I see… this agent, and no signs of it. He’s… good at cards. Psychic levels minimal, but enough to not be affected, never needed the drug.”
She blinked and came back to the present.
Caleb stepped forward. “Keep your gun on him.”
The agent tapped his ear. “Major Temple said he’s en route. Working on the chain of command, but…”
The dying agent coughed and lay still, and behind the desk, Caleb saw some movement. One of the female senators ducked out of view, then stood, fumbling with one of the dead agent’s weapons.
“Behind you!”
The agent spun around, aiming, but stopped when he saw the woman had the gun to her own head, not pointed as a threat.
“You win this one, Caleb,” she said — just as the back door opened behind Phoebe and Xavier came limping in, supported by Diana. He looked dazed and disoriented, but definitely himself again and very eager to see what was happening.
The woman in the bunker pressed the gun harder against her temple. “The culling of the population can wait, I suppose. Who knows, maybe you’ll fail and back down the public outcry and drop the Tesla shield, and then the comet will come in seven years and do the challenging work for us.”
She smiled. “Yes, I know about that too. Or we will find another way. Virus, war…?” She shrugged. “Maybe after recreating the world as it should have been, maybe then you will reconsider.”
“Reconsider what? Genocide? Extermination of the very creation you talk about enlightening?”
She made a tsking noise, shaking her head. “A conversation to be continued at another time, in another place. A colder place, as I’m sure you’ve seen.”
“Wait!” Phoebe shouted. “Where are my children?”
At that, the woman grinned. “Waiting to fulfill their destiny.”
And she pulled the trigger.
14
Xavier took in the scene: Caleb and Phoebe silhouetted against the streaming shafts of purple light, like a royal couple from an ancient initiation ceremony, albeit in their sweats and loafers instead of gowns and crowns. It was elegant nonetheless, with the government agents and techs in a semi-circle around them.
He had seen enough on the screen — and at the pharma plant — to know the threat here. Anyone taking those meds, which had been prescribed the last few years in abundance for anything from depression to anxiety and sleep disorders, were susceptible to possession by… whoever the hell that was.
“Caleb!”
He turned from the shocking scene, and the mayhem and death in the bunker.
Jesus, did I start all that?
“You did it,” Caleb said in a faint voice, issuing confirmation, but also gratitude. “Stopped the launch.”
“At what cost?” Diana asked, stepping ahead. She still gripped his hand, and he wondered what she was seeing alongside any natural sights. Hopefully, if anything, something more soothing and endearing even.
He owed her so much. Sticking by him through his body-jumping, his other demands, and now this — peeking into his mind and reliving his darkest moments. And still, she held onto him without a flicker of doubt. He knew she wanted to know more, to probe his motivations and his past, to share into every dark nook and cranny, and to understand, but that could, and should all wait.
He stopped suddenly, checking the faces and the actions of all the others in the room — those here to protect them. “Are we sure about us?”
Phoebe held up a reassuring hand as she let her gaze go over each man and woman in the room. “As much as we can be. Edgerrin picked this group specifically from those who had some elements of psychic ability, his own secret Stargate-lite. And as far as my last scan, brief as it was, I didn’t see anyone else taking the drug.”
“I’ve ordered my men to watch out,” said a new voice. Xavier realized it came from the speaker, and then he saw on the screen — the bunker had become more active as Edgerrin Temple strode in, flanked by two black-clad SWAT types with helmets and guns drawn on the remaining cabinet members and agents. “Keep an eye on each other as well as outside threats. Until we sort this out.”
“I’m sorry,” Xavier said. “I couldn’t stay in that bastard’s body long enough to see it through.”
“He was in some kind of tank,” Diana said. “Breathing tube. But he was empty, left his body to…”
“Occupy anyone,” said Caleb, “with the medical marker. Including the President, unfortunately.”
“Damn doctors and their over-medicating everyone,” Phoebe quipped.
“Still,” Xavier said, thinking back to it. The rush of water, the total lack of feeling in his ‘body’, just a vague nebulous tingling that seemed to elicit separation of consciousness and at first resisted his entrance. But once inside, he regained muscular control as if operating a standing forklift. Awkwardly lifting ‘his’ arms. Grasping the tube and pulling…
“I think the body going into shock and almost drowning — it not only rocked my control but yielded to his for familiarity and self-preservation. It was different than with Calderon. There, he wasn’t in danger, he had just vacated the shell.” He sighed. “Again, I’m sorry, I knew I had to rock him back, not leave him stranded in another body.”
“Especially not that body,” said Edgerrin. “You did good work.” He looked around the room, going from body to body.
“The President’s clinging to life. The VP and Secretary of State are dead. No one else here is in any shape to lead. And besides, according to succession plans…”
Xavier swallowed hard. All eyes turned to him, including Caleb’s and Edgerrin’s.
“By the law of the land, specifically the 25th Amendment and the unprecedented situation we find ourselves in, with the need for someone clear-headed and in no danger of possession to step up…”
Don’t say it, don’t say it…
Diana clenched his hand harder as his mouth went dry and he had a sudden vision of himself standing at a podium, hand on a Bible…
“Xavier Montross, also known to the world as Secretary General Mason Calderon, you are now acting Commander in Chief and President of the United States.”
Caleb might have clapped, and someone somewhere coughed nervously, but Xavier had no pretensions of anything like celebration. Duty, however, and responsibility came fast, just as the agents in the room now backed toward him, flanking him protectively.
Diana let go grudgingly of his hand, and stepped away as an agent gave Xavier an earpiece and then held out a phone, recording as he was sworn in.
“First order of business,” Temple said after. “Access codes to NORAD and launch centers. We need to discuss a strike on the pharma plant.”
“No discussion needed,” Xavier said. “Take it out. Do it fast. We can give exact coordinates, but you need the bunker busters. The production facility is deep. And he… our enemy, whatever his name… is deeper still.”