Imagine (Fuzed Trilogy Book 2) Read online

  Tim nodded. “What’s your experience as an intelligence operative?”

  “None.” Josh shook his head. “Tim, I was a strike-fighter pilot. I had a Top Secret clearance only because I was qualified to drop nuclear weapons and worked on classified defense programs. Never been a black ops guy.”

  Tim thought for a moment. “We can’t do much until the Cyber Warfare people give us some leads. Would you be willing to do a little training with me?”

  Josh shrugged. “Sure.”

  “Let’s start tomorrow morning. I’ll meet you at The Farm.”

  Josh nodded. “Sounds good ... uh, where’s The Farm?”

  Josh picked Elizabeth up at Dulles airport. It had only been a few days since they had seen each other, but they hugged for quite a while. Finally, breaking the lock, Elizabeth smiled and asked, “Senor, do you still need assistance with your hard drive?”

  Early the next morning, Josh slipped quietly out of bed. He smiled as he picked up their trail of clothes from the front door to the bedroom.

  Grabbing an energy drink, he went to the living room and sat down on the couch. Although it was a furnished apartment, there was no desk. His laptop and Elizabeth’s tablet sat on a coffee table in front of the couch. While it was booting up, he picked up the folder Davidson had given him and read it.

  He decided to start with an Internet search on genetics. He ended up jumping from article to article and going down multiple rabbit holes. He was deep into a peripheral article, when he looked past the screen and saw Elizabeth’s bare feet. He slid his eyes up those amazing legs, past her short silk bathrobe to ... she wasn’t smiling.

  With one hand on her hip, the other hand held his cell phone by two fingers, as if it were radioactive. “Josh, would you mind telling me who Jen is?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “Not sure?” She asked with raised eyebrows. “A rather intimate conversation with someone you’re not sure about.” She turned the phone’s display toward her and read, “Josh, what is love?”

  He laughed. “Read the entire exchange from the beginning.”

  Frowning, she sat down next to him and started reading. After a minute, she sighed softly, “Wow. She’s an incredibly precocious little girl, isn’t she?” She furrowed her brow. “Her vocabulary’s graduate-level,” she shook her head, “but her questions are barely grade-school. How old is she?”

  Josh smiled. “Keep reading.”

  Elizabeth read aloud, “Jen, how old are you? I’m seven.” She shook her head.

  Josh nodded. “I think she has an extremely high IQ.”

  Elizabeth looked sideways at him. “Like yours?”

  Josh sighed and then slowly said, “I wondered if there were others ... like me.” He shook his head. “But I didn’t expect to find a counterpart in the form of a little girl.”

  “Aren’t you going to meet her?”

  He raised his eyebrows. “Thirty-something man texts little girl, ‘Let’s meet.’”

  “OK, but she must have parents. Can you talk to them?”

  Josh nodded toward the phone.

  Elizabeth scrolled down and then read aloud, “Jen, can I talk to your parents?”

  “I don’t have any parents.”

  “I’m sorry, Jen. Is someone taking care of you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can I talk to them?”

  “No.”

  “Why?”

  “If they knew I was talking to you, I would get in trouble.”

  Josh said, “That’s why she only uses text.”

  Biting the side of her lip, Elizabeth looked over. “I don’t want to sound paranoid, but could someone be posing as a little girl to gain your trust?”

  “I thought of that, but it’s not like I have any special access or hold a powerful position. What would they gain? Besides, someone trying to imitate a little girl wouldn’t use her vocabulary.”

  She nodded and then handed him his phone with a smile. “She has a crush on you.”

  Josh laughed. “I think I need to introduce you two.” He paused, looking serious. “Or maybe not ... in a few years, she could be totally hot-looking.”

  She slapped his chest playfully. “You’re right. She needs a big sister.”

  Smiling, he put his arm around her and pulled her close. After a few moments, he said, “I know how important your work is, but I’m glad to have you here for a while.”

  “Me too.” She paused. “But I will have to see where they need me next.”

  “I know.” He sighed. “That’s one of the things I love about you.” He kissed her. “So, how’d you get along with Mr. Smith?”

  She laughed. “He’s such a sweetie.”

  Josh looked at her with surprise. “We’re talking about Tim Smith?”

  “Yeah, yeah, I know he’s like super deadly and all, but he was so thoughtful. He always offered to help and was right in there when we needed to move patients. The staff assumed he was a nurse.” She shook her head. “He was so protective. He slept in a chair outside my room every night. I can see what Sheri loves about him.”

  Josh nodded. “If it weren’t for Tim, London would be in ruins and possibly the entire world.”

  She nodded. Then, looking at his laptop screen, she asked, “Genetics?” With a raised eyebrow, she said, “And what are we up to now, Commander Fuze?”

  He handed her his CIA file. “This is what the hackers stole.” He paused. “Evidently, the CIA did a full genome scan on me ... or tried to. The results are in there, but it’s in medical jargon. Been trying to decipher it.”

  She sat back on the couch, propped her long legs up on the coffee table and began to read the files. After a minute, she picked her tablet up off the table and set it on her knees.

  Even in the glow of the tablet screen, he couldn’t help but think how beautiful she was.

  She glanced over at him and read his intentions. Smiling, she said, “Hold on there, sailor. Let me finish reading this.”

  After a couple minutes, she looked up from her tablet. “OK, if I understand this correctly, they ran the test three times with two samples, but came up with the same erroneous results.” She looked back at him. “They couldn’t find all your DNA.”

  He nodded. “Yeah, that’s what Davidson said.”

  She continued slowly, “But what’s interesting is the final note by the lab technician.” She read, “Despite having only half the normal DNA, the tissue sample appears to contain a complete human genome. Somehow, only the non-coding DNA is missing.”

  “I saw that, but what’s non-coding DNA?”

  Elizabeth said, “Been a long time since I took a Genetics class, so I looked it up. Non-coding DNA — often called junk DNA — is the part of our chromosomes that doesn’t do any coding or protein synthesis. About ninety-eight percent of our DNA is classified as non-coding.”

  Josh frowned. “Then what does it do?”

  She shrugged. “We’re not really sure. It doesn’t appear to do anything. One theory suggests most of it is legacy code.”

  Josh looked at her blankly.

  She put her finger to her lips in thought and then said, “Let me use a computer analogy. Computer operating systems, like Windows, have thousands of lines of computer code. If you were to examine the code, line by line, you’d discover some of it doesn’t appear to do anything. It’s sometimes called legacy code. It was from an earlier version, but it’s obsolete or controls something that no longer exists. They don’t always take the time to clean all of it out, and taking it out can sometimes cause problems. It’s often easier to leave it alone or make it inactive.” She paused. “It’s possible our bodies have some legacy DNA code.”

  “So, could you just cut out the non-coding DNA?”

  She looked thoughtful. “I don’t know, but if these results are right,” she looked him in the eye, “you have less than half the DNA of a normal human.”

  16

  THE FARM

  The next morning, Jo
sh drove from D.C. to The Farm. It was an unseasonably warm spring day, and he drove with the windows down. The trees along the road were waking up from winter with colorful blossoms. Unfortunately, the beautiful rolling landscape was lost to him as he tried to figure out how he could have misplaced half his DNA. Or, more accurately, how Jesse did it. With his body’s amazing abilities, he knew he was genetically different, but until now, had no idea how different. When he woke up after the crash, Jesse told him his new body was enhanced with one-in-one-hundred-million abilities. Then, when he saw himself in the hospital mirror, he realized he must have been given humanity’s best genes spanning all races. Now, it appeared Jesse had also stripped down his genes to the minimum required. As an engineer, he liked that idea, but it also made him feel a little like a freak.

  His phone’s digital assistant interrupted his thoughts. “You have a text message from Jen. Would you like me to read it?” He’d jokingly named his digital assistant Hal, after the relaxed but psychotic computer in the classic movie 2001.

  Josh said, “Yes.”

  Hal replied, “Would you like me to roll the windows up?”

  He smiled. “Yes.” It was a simple programming trick. Using the GPS, the digital assistant knew he was moving 80 miles an hour and was, therefore, in a car. So, it automatically switched to voice notification. Since it also synced with the car’s computer, it knew the windows were down and what the ambient noise level inside the car was.

  As soon as the windows closed, Hal read the voice text through the car’s audio system. “Did the gorillas try to eat you?”

  Josh smiled. Before he knew Jen’s age, he’d mentioned their adventures in Columbia. He realized he’d have to be more careful with his voice texting and check the spelling before sending. “No, Jen. I’m sorry. I spelled that wrong. They weren’t gorillas. They were G U E R I L L A S — a group of people trying to overthrow their government by military force. Our airplane made an emergency landing in an area they controlled.”

  Her reply came back immediately. “Why did you make an emergency landing?”

  “We were out of fuel and had to land in a river instead of on a runway.”

  “Why did you run out of fuel?”

  “We got lost.”

  “Why were you lost?”

  Josh laughed. Just like his nephew, when he was little, every answer resulted in another question. “Jen, it was an old airplane. Our pilot was using his phone’s navigation app and apparently there was something wrong with it.” With her vocabulary, he didn’t have to worry about using big words.”

  She said, “That’s terrible.”

  “It’s OK. We landed safely and it just took a few days to find us.” He was almost at The Farm, and before she could ask more questions, he said, “Jen, I’m going to be doing some training for a few days and won’t always have my phone with me.”

  “You mean I won’t be able to talk to you?”

  He realized they were voice texting several times a day. She was a sweet kid. Maybe he wouldn’t have made a bad dad after all. “Jen, I promise, if I don’t have my phone, I’ll check in with you at the end of the day.”

  As Josh pulled up to the gate, he realized he’d been here before. It was many years ago, right after he graduated and was commissioned in the Navy. While waiting for flight school, he reconnected with an old girlfriend from high school. She told him she was living with her parents on a base in Virginia and invited him to visit. There were plenty of military bases in that area, but he was surprised he’d never heard of this one. When he asked what her father did, she told him he was involved with experimental training. He later learned that was a euphemism often used in the intelligence and special operations world. In hindsight, he was glad he’d been a gentleman.

  Despite the pastoral setting, the security was tighter than any base he’d seen. The guards at the gate carried M16s at the ready, and a military ID wasn’t sufficient for entry without an escort. Fortunately, they were expecting him this time and he received a full-access badge.

  Tim had given him directions to the gym. As they met, he took Josh right into one of the training rooms with mats on the floor.

  Josh asked, “Should we change first?”

  “In the real world, you’ll be fighting in whatever you’re wearing. Let’s try some basic takedowns. See where we are.”

  Josh was confident. In addition to his martial arts background, his new body’s strength and agility were phenomenal. Josh moved in on Tim for a judo take town. His execution was perfect, but as he completed the move, he felt a sharp pain in his groin and hesitated. Before he knew what was happening, he was on the floor with his neck under Tim’s foot.

  Tim let him up.

  Josh got up slowly. Leaning over with his hands on his knees and waiting for the pain to subside, he looked at Tim questioningly.

  Tim, looking very serious, said, “When you’re fighting in the real world, you’re not going for tournament points. Fighting fair on your part isn’t recommended if you want to survive.”

  Josh just nodded.

  Tim added, “We’ll work on vulnerabilities that you need to protect and can take advantage of.”

  His photographic memory helped, but being able to spar with Tim made all the difference.

  After a couple hours, Tim called an end to the session.

  Josh said, “Almost everything you taught will result in my opponent’s death. There must be times when you need to disable without killing.”

  “Yes.”

  Josh smiled. “So, are you going to teach me, like the Vulcan neck pinch or something?”

  “There are a couple techniques we use to immobilize without harming, but they take a lot of practice to master.” Tim went over to a small case he’d brought with him. “Sometimes, we get help from technology.” He opened the case and pulled out something that looked like a class ring. “It’s a tiny Taser.”

  Josh held out his hand.

  Tim hesitated and then handed it to him. As Josh put it on the ring finger of his right hand, Tim continued, “You can simply touch someone on the neck or shoulder or even shake their hand and completely incapacitate them.”

  Josh held up the ring on his hand and studied it. He felt a small indentation on one side.

  Tim continued, “But it takes some training to use effectively because—”

  There was a popping sound.

  Josh found himself face down on the floor, feeling like he’d been hit in the back with a two-by-four.

  In the same monotone, Tim finished, “Because unless you wear a specially insulated glove, it’s easy to tase yourself instead of your target.”

  Regaining muscle control, Josh rolled over on his back and said, “Ouch.”

  Tim offered a hand.

  Josh reached up with his right hand.

  Tim pulled his hand back and said, “Other hand.”

  As he stood up, he got a rare smile from Tim. “They require everyone who’s issued one of these to experience it. Congratulations.”

  Rubbing his face where the floor struck it, Josh said, “So you do have a sense of humor.”

  Tim nodded, still smiling. “That was actually very funny.”

  Josh shook his head. “Glad I could help.” He carefully took the ring off and offered it to Tim.

  “Keep it. You’ll be more receptive to learning its operating and safety procedures. By the way, except for that one, no rings or jewelry should be worn here or when operational.”

  Josh frowned as he glanced down at his wedding ring. Elizabeth had it specially made out of small, gold pilot wings.

  Tim explained, “You don’t want any obvious indication of your background, what school you went to, whether you’re married, or that you were a Navy pilot. The bad guys can figure that out pretty quickly. Don’t make it easier for them.”

  Josh slipped his wedding ring off and put it in his pocket.

  They wrapped up, and Josh checked into his base quarters. His muscles were sore from t
he workout and the self-induced tasing. Despite the abuse, however, he realized how fortunate he was to have Tim as a mentor. Josh was a martial-arts-trained athlete with phenomenal chromosomes, but he was certain Tim could kill him in seconds without working up a sweat. Experience and training almost always trumped raw talent. He would learn everything he could.

  The next day, they practiced more close-quarters combat and then went to a gun range. Tim introduced him to several different weapons, some he’d only seen in movies. Josh had achieved the highest military rifle and pistol qualification, and could easily put rounds into the bull’s eye. After seeing this, Tim said, “Congratulations, you’re good at hitting defenseless, stationary pieces of paper.”

  They went to a place Tim called the dynamic range. Targets popped up all over, accompanied by distractions. It was one thing to concentrate on a bull’s eye. It was very different evaluating and shooting moving targets under constantly changing conditions. He enjoyed the training. It reminded him of carrier landings in the simulator, where knowing it was a simulation didn’t stop the adrenaline or sweat.

  Tim told Josh he wanted to put him into some basic classes he referred to as “tradecraft.” Late that afternoon, he introduced Josh to the head of the school, Stuart Nickles.

  Nickles said, “Davidson asked me to facilitate you in any way possible. We’d be happy to insert Commander Fuze into any of the ongoing classes.” He offered Tim a sheet and said, “Here’s where each class is in the curriculum.”

  As Tim read through it, Nickles added, “Tim, any chance we could have you do a guest lecture while you’re here?”

  Tim handed the sheet back to him. “Let’s put him in class nine.” He shook his head. “Stuart, it’s been too long. There’s nothing useful I could teach anymore.”

  Nickles looked over the top of his glasses at Tim. “You serious? I don’t want to impose, but when we get an operative of your reputation ....” He smiled. “Any topic, any topic at all, I’ll pull all the classes together for a session.”

  Tim shook his head. “Sorry.”

  They inserted Josh into a class of six. It was apparent this was a group of fit, intelligent and highly motivated men and women. In their early- to mid-twenties, Josh was the old man in the class. He realized this was the real spy stuff and found much of it fascinating, some of it confusing and some of it surprisingly boring.