Elite Page 13

  “Let me use an analogy,” Horchoff began in an attempt to calm Richfield. “It’s like switching from a basic TV remote, to a remote for an entire home entertainment system. The controls to the TV remote are relatively few – You have your standard volume control, channel up and down, power button – things of that nature. Eventually you get so used to using that remote that you can control virtually any function of your television without even having to look down at the remote itself.

  “Now imagine that you decide to upgrade to a full home entertainment system – TV, sound sytem, BluRay player, DVR – the works. Now you decide consolidate the controls for all of this new equipment onto one remote. Now you have a new remote with exponentially more buttons on it, and it is going to take time for you to learn which buttons control which features. That is what Daniel’s brain is doing right now. Trying to determine which buttons now do what.”

  Richfield had been watching Daniel the entire time Horchoff had been talking. He now turned to look Horchoff in the eye.

  “So he basically has to learn how to do everything all over again? Like an infant child?”

  Richfield’s statement carried enough weight that it was able to break through and gain Daniels attention. That is not what he had signed up for. He thought he was going to be learning things in his training like how to leap a building in a single bound, not learning how to walk all over again. He wanted to strangle Horchoff for not warning him about this before the operation. If only he could move.

  “No, I don’t think so. Not if my theory is correct,” Horchoff countered. “You see, when you get that remote, what are the first things you look for?”

  Horchoff paused to look at the faces of each person in the room as if waiting for an answer. He even looked at Daniel, which only served to make Daniel even angrier.

  “You look for those same basic controls you had on your first remote. How to turn the TV on and off, change the channel, control the volume – and before you know it, you’re able to control those basic functions again without having to look for them on the remote anymore. Then you go back and begin to learn what the other buttons do as you need them.

  ‘The old pathways in Daniel’s brain are still there. It can still function the way it used to, it just needs to put the pieces together and learn that it can ignore those new neurons for the time being. It will be in training that we go back and try to teach his brain what cool features those new buttons control. And the ones he uses most often, he will learn to control without effort. The others, he will still have to glance down and search for the right button, but the control for it will be there.”

  After hearing the doctor’s theory Daniel closed his eyes and tried to put his mind at rest. He tried to remember how he had functioned before, as if trying to convince his brain to forget about the new additions for the time being and just go back to business as usual. The thing of it was, his conscious mind had never understood exactly how his brain communicated with the rest of his body. He had simply decided that he wanted to move his arm and his brain took it from there. He knew this was something he was going to have to learn if he wanted to be able to control his “new features” in the future.

  “So give him a little more time, and he should be back to normal. That’s what you’re saying?” Richfield asked in an attempt to sum up the doctors explanation.

  “Theoretically,” Horchoff said almost defensively, clearly frightened at what Richfield’s response might be but unwilling to lie.

  This caused Daniel to turn his head to stare at Horchoff. He couldn’t really feel his eyebrows, but he was quite sure that his glare was an angry looking one.

  Richfield clenched his fist and acted as though he were going to pound it on the bed, but refrained when he realized that doing so might have resulted in him hitting Daniel.

  “You said that the worst thing that could happen was that nothing would change! Not that he could wind up as a conscious mind trapped in an unusable body! What kind of hell is that?!”

  “I said probably the worst thing,” Horchoff countered, as though that made things any better.

  Daniel took strange comfort in Richfield’s anger. Maybe he really did care for Daniel’s well-being. But at the same time he felt a similar rage building upwithin himself. Richfield had hit the nail on the head. Living like this for the rest of his life would be exactly that – hell.

  He had become so angry that his anger began to supersede the spinning sensation. He may not have been able to feel his body, but he could certainly feel his emotions. The fear and anger had become very intense, and he wanted to let Horchoff know just how he felt. If he could only…

  Suddenly, without warning, Daniel felt his back raise as he lifted his head an inch or so off the bed. He let out a loud, angry grunt, his mouth closed the entire time, maintaining the angry death-stare he directed at Horchoff.

  Taken aback by the sudden outburst, Richfield and Horchoff stared down at Daniel, not knowing how to interpret the sudden change in behavior. Daniel looked back at the two of them, just as caught off guard by his own actions as they were.

  Horchoff finally broke the silence. “See,” he said, gesturing with his hand down at Daniel and looking up at Richfield, “his motor skills are already returning.”

  Just then Daniel forgot about his anger, as the sensation of spinning began to intensify even further, this time accompanied by a great pain in his skull. He had never before experienced a migraine headache, but he believed that this would have ranked up there with the worst of them.

  He closed his eyes and cringed at the pain and discomfort. He could feel water welling up in his eyes.

  “He looks to be in a lot of pain, Doctor,” Richfield said, immediately noticing Daniel’s look of discomfort.

  “I’d prefer not to give him any pain killers or sedatives while his brain is trying to rediscover how to connect with the muscles and nerves in his body. They would block the signals his brain is still trying to figure out how to send properly, and needless to say that could have very adverse effects on the recovery process,” the doctor explained.

  Richfield looked down at Daniel, an empathetic expression on his face. He hated to see this kid that he had grown to admire suffer like this, but he understood why it was necessary.

  As did Daniel. He regretted now more than ever his decision to get involved with Richfield and his mad scientist. He wanted nothing more than to be with his family right now, and to have Jordan there with him as well, if only as a friend. He had been selfish to demand more. He wanted her – his best friend – more than ever.

  “Hang in their Danny Boy,” he heard a familiar voice say from beside him. Daniel looked over and noticed that Blank has his hand on Daniel’s arm, grasping it as if to let him know that he did in fact have a friend there in the room with him. Daniel had no idea how long Blank’s hand had been there, given that he couldn’t feel anything, but there was no way Blank could have known that.

  Suddenly Daniel felt a twinge of comfort. He alone had to deal with the physical pain, but he genuinely believed now that he wouldn’t be the only one who suffered. For whatever reason, Blank genuinely cared about Daniel. He was a man who had learned long ago how to look down deep into someone’s soul, and there was something within Daniel that he found admirable. He wasn’t sure why, but Daniel had quickly grown to share that same admiration for Mr. Blank.

  Daniel closed his eyes once more, took a deep breath, and tried to relax. He tried to distract himself from misery by thinking about what his life would be like once he got through this. Once he had finished his training, become the top agent at Elite, and had more money and ability than Gordon Demérs could ever dream of.

  He knew one thing for certain – he was never going to talk to strange men on the street ever again.

  Chapter 8

  Daniel woke just in time to see the nurse walking into the room with his breakfast. She carried the tray over and fastened it to the rail of the bed so that it sat in front o
f him.

  “You know Jo, I’m gonna miss seeing your beautiful face bring me my breakfast every morning,” Daniel said to the nurse with a grin.

  Joanna was the head nurse of the facility. She was an older woman, early sixties, and she had apparently known Richfield for quite a long time. She began her nursing career at a V.A. hospital when she was only twenty years old, and had been doing it ever since. Her exact connection to Richfield was unknown to Daniel.

  “Well darling,” she spoke, “I wish I could tell you the same but I got a hundred more just like ya. I’ll hardly know the difference.”

  Daniel chuckled. Joanna had a very dry sense of humor. So dry that at times Daniel wasn’t sure whether or not her words were intended as humor, or if she was just a grouchy old hag. Either way, Daniel had grown quite fond of the woman.

  Just as Jo was leaving the room, Blank made his own abrupt entrance. In his left arm he carried some folded clothes. He wore an expression that was part anxiousness and part excitement.

  “You ready to break out of here today, Danny Boy?” Blank asked, setting the clothes on the bed at Daniel’s feet.

  “You have no idea,” Daniel answered, as he spread some strawberry jam on his toast.

  This was Daniel’s ninth day in the recovery ward on the facility’s medical level. He had apparently gone into a min-coma after the surgery, and it wasn’t until four days later that he had woken up unable to control his body functions. All part of the “adjustment process” according to Dr. Horchoff.

  The next two days were hell. His brain’s attempt to rediscover its own functionality caused him a great deal of discomfort. Between the world constantly spinning around him and the constant pounding in his skull, sleep was little more than a pipe dream. Slowly though, his brain adjusted and he gradually began to take control of his body once again.

  Two hours after first waking he began to wiggle fingers and toes. Twelve hours after that he found that he could speak again. As each function returned to him the spinning slowed and the pain decreased. After two days he was finally back to normal. The entire next day had been devoted to catching up on the sleep he had been robbed of the previous two, and the last two days he had been devoted to recovery and general healing.

  The next week or so would be devoted to testing to make sure Daniel hadn’t suffered any “unforeseen complications” that were related to the procedure. All Daniel knew was that Horchoff had better pray that everything went according to plan. He hadn’t learned how to use his supposed new abilities yet, but he was pretty sure that he could take the good doctor with or without them.

  “Well finish up your breakfast and put some clothes on,” Blank said. “Then we’ll bust you outta here.”

  “Not until we change out those bandages!” Joanna’s voice sounded out in the hallway, as if waiting for her cue.

  She came into the room and proceeded to unwrap the white bandage that lined the upper portion of Daniel’s head. He looked over to see Blank’s expression as she exposed the stiches where they had removed Daniel’s scalp for the operation. Blank did not look appalled, but as though he felt sorry for Daniel for having to walk around with such a prominent, unattractive wound. They had shaved Daniel’s head beforehand to make the process easier, but it was quickly starting to grow back.

  “You know the doc says with a little meditation training, your new talents should help you to heel up real quick-like,” Blank told Daniel.

  “Great,” Daniel replied, unenthused. “Some quality one-on-one time with the doctor.”

  Daniel was still very angry with Dr. Horchoff for not warning him about the so-called “adjustment process” for his brain, and not letting Daniel know about how miserable an experience that would be. Richfield and Blank also made it very obvious to the doctor that they too were not all too thrilled about that particular oversight.

  “You best be getting over your little grudge with the doctor, kid.” Blank told Daniel. “You’re going to be working with him quite a bit in the coming months and he’s going to show you a lot of things that are going to change your life. He may not be perfect, but you’ll be thanking him in the end.”

  Daniel nodded his head as Jo finished wrapping his new, clean bandage. He still wasn’t completely convinced that he would become the physical specimen that the others expected him to, but at this point he was already neck-deep in it, so he might as well be optimistic.

  After finishing off his scrambled eggs, toast, and yogurt, Daniel set his tray aside and got up to stretch. Surprisingly, he felt phenomenal. Aside from the two days of hell he had experienced after waking up from his Horchoff-induced coma, a week of bed rest was apparently just what he needed. After his muscles felt sufficiently extended, he began to put on the clothes Blank had brought to him, a noticeable pep in his step.

  He had been out of bed several times in the past couple days – to stretch out and walk around the medical level – but this morning felt different. He was finally getting out of here. He had made it through the ever-dangerous experimental brain surgery and come out alive, and was anxious to get started on the next chapter of his life. Now the worst thing that could happen would be that he walked out of there a hundred-thousand dollars richer if he were unable accomplish the task of becoming a super-human millionaire. Things could only go up from here.

  As Daniel finished dressing, Blank briefed him on the day he had ahead.

  “Richfield says he’s going to give you today to get settled in. We can take the day to just walk around the complex and get you familiar with where things are. This is your home now Danny Boy.”

  Blanks words caused Daniel to pause for a moment as he was about to fasten his belt. This was it. For the next few months this was his world. There would be no family, no friends, and no Jordan. Elite Personal Security force would serve as all of those things for the time being.

  He looked over at Blank and nodded, acknowledging that he understood.

  “Alright then,” Blank said, seemingly pleased to continue with the day’s festivities. “Let’s go see your new room.”

  When the elevator reached the housing level on the fourth floor down from the surface, Daniel felt a great sense of relief from finally getting out of the medical ward. He had been there for a total of nine days and though he had been mostly conscious for only four of them, it had felt like weeks. Even though he was still technically underground he felt like a bird released from his cage. Although he was still confined to the house, his world felt much grander for the time being.

  Blank and Daniel made their way down a long, drab hallway. The walls were concrete with no decoration except for the occasional bulletin board, and on them appeared to be the sorts of things you would normally expect to be found pinned to the board of any housing community. Daniel caught a glimpse of one flyer advertising a lightly used pair of black patrol boots for “only sixty-five dollars.” The person selling them was apparently someone named “Hodge.”

  There were several other people walking through this particular hallway. Most were men, but there were a couple women among them as well. Most seemed to be headed either to or from the shower, as almost everyone was wearing some form of workout pants or shorts and had towels slung over their shoulders. The majority of the men were shirtless, while the women had on sports bras.

  All of them seemed to know Blank. As they walked passed them, they all nodded at Mr. Blank and he greeted them all by name.

  “Billy…Monster…Claw…Hawkins…”

  From what Daniel could tell, many of the agents had nicknames. At least he hoped “Monster” and “Claw” were nicknames.

  “Generally people don’t actually live here,” Blank began to explain, as they reached the halfway point of the corridor and made a sharp right into an adjoining hallway.

  “Most agents have their own homes outside of the complex,” he continued, “but everyone does have their own bunk just in case they need it. Usually they just use them to store their gym clothes, an extra pair o
f street clothes – what have you – and sometimes they stay here if they’re just getting back from a long mission, in the midst of a special training, if they’ve been up late researching a mission, or sometimes they just want to get away from home, know what I mean?”

  Blank stopped in front of one of the doors, looking at Daniel for a response. Given that he had spent the past two years of his life living alone, he truly didn’t.

  Blank let his previous statement fade into the distance and put the key into the door lock.

  “Anyway, because of that most people are assigned to bunkmates – generally one to three depending on seniority.” Blank turned the key and pushed open the door. “But Richfield figured since you’ll be living here full-time for a while – and due to the special nature of your training – we’d give you your own room.”

  Blank flipped the light switch turning on a single bulb in the center of the room, and stepped aside so that Daniel could make his way in. Daniel stepped in, feeling a twinge of disappointment though he was not the least bit surprised by the simplicity of the room. He had expected no more.

  The walls, ceiling, and floor of the ten-by-ten room were all concrete, just like the hallways. Pushed up against the left hand wall was a small wooden desk, with a small lamp sitting on it. In the far right corner was a cot that looked as though it was just slightly wider than Daniel’s body. In the center of the floor was a hideous, though enormous, green and brown rug. And stacked in the center of the rug, were all of the things Daniel had packed up from his apartment ten days prior.

  “Feel free to decorate however you please,” Blank said, and Daniel was not sure whether or not it was meant as some sort of joke.

  “There is wireless internet and cable TV,” Blank explained, pointing at the cable outlet to the right of the doorway. “Community bath and locker rooms are back down this hall, opposite the way we came. There is a set of stairs in there that lead up to the workout room. Take a few minutes to settle in, then come find me upstairs when you’re ready and I’ll show you around a little bit more.”