Jessica sat up in the hospital bed as the attendant wheeled in her lunch, replacing the cart which still held her breakfast. Lifting the plastic cover, he saw that she hadn’t eaten a thing.
“Ms. Marulli, if you don’t eat then how do you expect Dr. Spencer to discharge you?”
“I’ve been here six days which is five too many. Today starts Day 1 of a hunger strike.”
“That won’t be necessary.”
She looked up as the Canadian-born physician entered her room, accompanied by his wife, a registered nurse.
Like most of the medical staff serving MAJI’s subterranean complexes, Dr. Ken Spencer had begun his career in the military. He had met his wife, Robbin, during the first Gulf War, the couple returning to Alberta where they opened a private medical clinic. But once a year they reported to the complex outside Edwards Air Force Base where they were whisked by Maglev train to one of the secret subterranean complexes — the six week rotation tripling both of their annual salaries.
“Good afternoon, Jessica. And how are we feeling today?”
“My head feels better, my left forearm’s slightly sore from where that asshole tasered me last week. Other than that, I’m fine.”
The physician inspected the quarter-size welt along her biceps where he had been ordered to implant the tracking device. “Give it another day; I’m sure it’ll feel better by then. The good news is that you passed your concussion protocol.”
“Does that mean I’m free to leave?”
“Just give Nurse Robbin a few minutes to remove your I.V.”
Lydia Gagnon watched her friend’s daughter from behind the one-way glass, her skin crawling from the presence of the sociopath who had just entered the viewing area.
Colonel Alexander Johnston’s crystal-blue eyes glittered beneath the fluorescent light, the soft pink flesh covering his bony cheeks yielding to the silver-white whiskers of a five o’clock shadow. The man known as Dr. Death smelled of baby powder and formaldehyde, the scent coming from his hands and the frayed sleeves of his black turtleneck sweater.
General Thomas Cubit gagged at the stench. “Christ, Colonel — this is a medical facility, not a morgue. There’s a new invention… maybe you heard of it — it’s called soap.”
“Why are you here?”
“Dr. Marulli serves under my command. I will not allow you to subject her to your psychotronic mind control.”
“She’s a security risk.”
“She is not a risk,” Lydia shot back. “Mr. Mull tested her and she refused to comply, returning the ZPE device to the lab.”
“Mr. Mull isn’t convinced and neither am I. Her activity in the Hive the night she witnessed the ARV is very suspicious.”
“That’s only because the two of you are paranoid schizophrenics,” General Cubit said. “I’m releasing her, and I’m taking her off probation, allowing her full access to the facility.”
Alexander Johnston turned to him, speaking through clenched yellow teeth. “You’re making a mistake.”
“And you’re outvoted,” Lydia said.
With a grunt that sounded like a wounded animal’s growl, Colonel Johnston turned for the door, kicking a wastepaper basket on his way out.
Lydia ran her sweaty palms across her lab coat. “I despise that man. What do you think he had the doc inject into her arm?”
I don’t know, but the more active she is, the quicker it will pass.”
“What happened with Shariak?”
Cubit smiled. “They tried to bribe him and he turned it around. If the old man hadn’t tossed him out there would have been a sea-change in the inner ring.”
“That’s why Dr. Death’s on the war path.”
“Yes, and you can bet the hardliners won’t go quietly into the night.”
Senator Randy Hall, Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, sat back in his desk chair and re-read the list of names his brother had prepared for the first week of hearings.
“Adam, who the hell are these people? I don’t see a defense contractor’s name among them.”
“I’m saving the CEOs for week two. Week one are scientists and members of the Armed Forces who can attest to the existence of the Unacknowledged Special Access Projects we’re investigating.”
“If they haven’t received money from the treasury, then their testimony is irrelevant. I told you I wasn’t going to allow you to waste the Appropriations Committee’s time.”
“First, this is a joint hearing and I’m riding shotgun. Second, every defense contractor we call upon to answer questions about these illegal black ops projects is either going to deny they exist or plead the fifth. By calling these witnesses first and establishing that these USAPs exist, taking the fifth will seem more of an admission of guilt instead of an action to protect a top-secret weapons system.”
“I assume these people have high security clearances… how are you going to get them to violate their national security oaths in order to come forward and testify?”
“You prepare the subpoenas and let me worry about that.”
Part 4
“We’ll know our disinformation is complete when everything the American public believes is false.”
“The business of the journalist is to destroy the truth; to lie outright; to pervert; to vilify; to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. You know it, and I know it, and what folly is this toasting an independent press? We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings, and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men. We are intellectual prostitutes.”
“The CIA owns everyone of any significance in the major media.”
The three-foot-high by four-foot-long double-paned barrier of glass stood upright on the table top. Wedged inside the half-inch spacing separating the two glass panels was an ant colony, the insect habitat composed of an edible neon-blue gel.
Michael Sutterfield’s eyes followed the intricate pattern of tunnels channeling the perpetual activity of the nest. “They’re like a well-trained army.”
Dr. Mohammad Mallouh acknowledged the comment from the other side of the table. “They certainly function as a collective consciousness.”
“And not a sociopath among them, huh Dr. M? No ants committing impulsive acts… every ant doing their job. Because if an ant were to go off the rails, the others would probably have to kill it.”
“Ants are not people, Michael.”
“You’re right. The colony wouldn’t exclude one of its own kind unless the ant first did something wrong. But me — I’m banned from CE-5 training because of something I could ‘potentially’ do against the Interstellars?”
“It’s not fair, but after what happened years ago with the sociopaths in MAJI and the climate change deniers, the world is taking no chances.”
“Didn’t President Trump ban those victims of wars from entering the country because he believed Muslims were terrorists?”
“The Syrian refugees… yes.”
“Do you know a lot of Muslim terrorists?”
“I don’t, no. Your point is well taken, however—”