Mind + Body by Aaron Dunlap (free books to read TXT) đ
- Author: Aaron Dunlap
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The expression fell from Schumerâs face for a moment. âWow,â he said, flatly. âYouâre a lot farther behind than I thought youâd be.â
âWhat are you talking about? All youâve told me is lies, how would I know anything else?â
Schumer leaned his head back and chuckled deeply, sickly. âThis is quite a situation, then,â he said through a grin.
âSo tell me, then,â I said. âWhat am I supposed to have figured out already?â
âThe program change!â said Schumer. âI thought this was all because youâd found out.â
I just looked at him, my gun still pointed at his heart.
Schumer let out a low sigh, then adjusted his footing slightly as if his legs were cramping. âWhat I told you about the program was true, my intentions, how it was designed, that was all the truth. For a while, it was, anyway.â
âIâm listening,â I said when he stopped talking.
âOver a decade into the program, there was a regime change. New President, new bodies in the White House, new oversight committee, new superiors. The people who had approved my project, who were providing me with the funding under the table, they were all gone. Retired and redistributed. The people who came in after them didnât want to hear word one about what I was doing, about the money already spent and how much weâd lose if we scrapped the project. They wanted nothing to do with it. It was a new world, a new all over again. The climate that made the project a possibility had changed. The money was gone.
âSo, I was forced to find new avenues of financing. I was approached by someone who wanted to fund the project, so I took the shot without asking questions. Questions I should have asked.â
âWhat was the problem?â I asked.
âIt turned out I wasnât getting straight funding so much as a promotional sponsorship or an investment. The ones with the money had their own plans for how to use the program, beyond military recruiting.â
âWhat kind of plans? Political, or commercial?â
âYes,â he said. Thatâs the answer my mother once gave when I asked if a tomato was a fruit or a vegetable.
âThere was tremendous pressure on me to do what they wanted. They wanted results. They didnât want duty and honor taught through hypnosis, they wanted to see how far we could take it. This was late in the game, though, you were already in your teens, only a few years from completion. Still, they wanted results or the money would disappear.â
âWhat did they want, then? You said you changed the program, what did you change it to?â
âYou,â he said. âExactly what you are now. A ruthless, unquestioning, mechanical delivery system of death. âWhat is the point of having an advanced training platform if you only teach what can be learned in a few months of training?â they asked me. They wanted the product of years of service and training. They wanted Special Forces. They wanted kites, shadow men, wet workers, black ops. They wanted Navy Seals coming off of an assembly line.â
âAnd thatâs what you gave them,â I said through grinding teeth.
âI had them change your training schedule, brought in some of our SF instructors to write a new âcurriculumâ for you. Battlefield ethics and squad formations were out, knife fighting and improvised explosives were in.â
So thatâs what it was. I wasnât supposed to be the perfect soldier, I was supposed to be the perfect killer. It explained everything Iâd been able to do, it explained the fleeting grasp I had on myself.
âWho are these people? Whoâs paying the bills now?â I asked.
Schumer leveled his gaze at me. âPeople with more power than they should have. People who stand to gain from having people like you on staff.â
âYou said this was all about that, the program change?â
He nodded. âIn essence, when I changed your training program, I placed the roof on a house of cards. Something messed up your hypnotic compartmentalizing, and the training started leaking out, as youâve discovered. Stress, fear, whatever it was, it shouldnât have happened. It wouldnât have if weâd stuck to the original program.â
âThat stress was from my father being killed!â I barked.
âWell,â Schumer said, âhouse of cards.â
I pulled back the slide of the pistol with my left hand, chambering a round. âExplain please.â
âI didnât think heâd like the idea of the new specialty we were preparing you for, so I tried to keep it from him. He had, after all, agreed to have you taught about discipline and all that âThe few, the proud, the Marines.â I tried to keep him in the dark about your new training regimen. When he found out, he didnât take it very well.â
âIt was illegal, unethical. He tried to report it to the FBI.â
âWe couldnât have that,â Schumer said in a disgustingly coy tone.
âI tried to talk him out of it. Told him we could undo the training once it was proven to work, told him it was under control, even offered him more money since there was a newfound surplus of it. He wouldnât take.â
âSo you killed him.â
âNot myself, no.â
âJust because he was going to shed light on your secret project?â
âAs I said, there was tremendous pressure to keep it running. I might give you a moment to process that but I know it would be useless, you were taught to suppress your emotions. Box them up, drive yourself crazy later, just get the job done now. You canât even make yourself care now, can you? Knowing why your father died. A normal person would care. A normal person would have shot me by now.â
My mind did seem rather blank. I knew Schumer was responsible for my fatherâs death, but hearing him admit to it should have affected me somehow_. _More than this.
âShut upââ I started.
âAs for your other question,â he began before I could finish. âAs for when exactly the training was conducted, Iâm not entirely sure. That was all Nathanâs job, I figured you would have asked him that before you killed him.â
âWhat are you talking about, you had him killed!â
âIs that how youâre painting it for the police? If you can pull it off, I guess.â
What was he talking about? I killed Comstock? No, I didnât. I would have remembered that. Like how Iâd remember being trained as a killer in the first place. Could he be right? Could I be doing things still without realizing?
âThat box,â I said, glancing for a moment behind me and toward the parking area. âWhat was that?â
Schumer chuckled again, âThat? Files. Everything thatâs left of the program. I shut it down, Chris. Itâs over. I figured that since youâve started shooting FBI agents now, there would be no way to keep the heat away from this thing anymore. I destroyed most of it tonight, I thought Iâd bring the rest home for one last hurrah, you know?â
More nonsense, heâs still trying to kick me off balance. I called Amyâs name and she appeared from the stairwell behind me.
âOver by the car thereâs a cardboard box, bring it here,â I said, keeping my eye on Schumer who seemed very surprised to see Amy.
When the sound of her footprints vanished out of range, Schumer stopped following her with his eyes and looked back to me.
âEither sheâs gone rogue or youâre one hell of an idiot,â he said.
âWhat?â I asked.
Schumerâs smile returned. âDo you think Nathan Comstock was our only means of keeping an eye on you? Hah, how old did she say she is? Iâve heard her go as low as sixteen.â
Shaking my head slowly, I said, âWhat are you talking about?â
âPlease,â he said. âWhen did she first start talking to you? How do you think we always knew where you were? To be honest, I didnât think sheâd last this long without you finding out.â
âNo,â I muttered, âWhat are youââ and I trailed off in thought. Amy first showed up in my life right after my dad died and she took an unusual interest.
She was there in Lorton, when Dingan somehow tracked me down in a city nearly an hour away from home. It was her plan to go there in the first place. She was the only person who knew I was going to Austria, and she was the only person who knew when I was supposed to return, which was exactly when the guys showed up at my house, which she was there for. She was the only one who knew I was on my way to Comstockâs house, where I showed up just after heâd been killed. She was surprisingly good at deceiving people over the phone or in person, and she was the only justification Iâd had that my fourth hour study hall couldnât have been when I was being hypnotized.
God. No, wait. Iâd met her father, though he was involved with the Marines as well. Iâd remembered Amy from long before she actually started talking to me, though. Right, that.
âShe was around a long time before my dad was killed, though,â I said, âI remember her.â
Schumerâs face became oddly sympathetic. âYou remember her, or youâŠâ he tapped his forehead twice, âremember her?â
My hand wavered a bit. It could have been a distraction, but it made so much sense. As an administrator, Comstock could have fudged the paperwork to transfer her into school to watch me or make sure I did the right things or didnât figure out the wrong things. I couldnât remember her ever being too scared whenever I, or âweâ were in danger.
Amy walked back into the corridor, carrying the cardboard box with both hands. I turned sharply to look at her, then back at Schumer.
âHere,â she said. âItâs full of file folders.â
âIââ my voice stuttered, âWhatâs in the folders?â
She sat the box down on the floor and knelt beside it, Schumer watched with a satisfied smirk. âLooks likeâŠâ Amy started, âorders, more orders, logs, charts. Some of the folders have names and words on the tabs some donât. Hereâs one with your name on it.â
âNothing in there links me to your father,â Schumer said to me.
âOh, Iâm not planning on bringing this to trial,â I said.
âRight. You just want to shoot me,â he said, crossing his arms.
He stood there, saying nothing for half a minute, as if waiting for something. âFor killing your father,â he said, as if a prompt.
If he was banking that I couldnât summon the rage, he was wrong. His distractions had worked well enough, Iâd lost the train of thought Iâd been riding earlier, but the fact still remained that Schumer killed my father, who had done nothing wrong. Who tried to do the right thing. Who knew he might die, and wanted to make sure that if he did die that I wouldnât be put out.
Iâd wanted to kill Schumer for days now.
This was my chance.
I straightened my right arm, centering the reticule in the middle of Schumerâs chest. I told my heart to slow down, my breath to steady, the thoughts and feelings in my mind to silence. I tightened my grip on the pistol. I felt Amyâs presence just a few feet behind me. I put my finger on the trigger, and told my hand to squeeze.
Nothing happened. I tried to pull the trigger again, nothing. I couldnât. My hand wouldnât move. Then, the more I thought about it, the sillier the idea of killing that man had seemed. He was so friendly.
âWhat is it?â Amy asked.
Schumer smiled, then broke out into a laugh.
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