Chapter 6: Vulcan Hearing

“Okay, you’re done Rambo”, he said with a warm note of humour in his tone, as he sat down beside her, her smile was both infectious and disarming. Because of its natural warmth, humanizing her. “You want to take it off yourself or do you want me to use the scissors?”, she asked in relevance to his ruined white shirt. It had signs of fresh bleeding showing through the material, as fresh plasma lit up new patches in bright red, in comparison to old wounds which were now a dark, almost black shade of crimson. “Scissors, no one’s gonna bring this one back from the dead”, he said with a grim smile, as she obliged him, taking the steel pair he’d left on the table for cutting measured amounts of thread and cut him out of his shirt with tender care, in a single vertical cut down the length of his back. Peeling it off him like a fruit’s thin outer layer of skin, she slipped it off his arms carefully through the short sleeves and dumped it into a metal bucket he’d prepared at her feet beforehand, along with a separate sponge and warm bowl of sterilized water, for both of them to dab the blood from his back and body in general if they needed to.

The agents watched as she worked, their eyes wide with a mix of shock and awe, as they took in the sheer scale of damage he’d suffered and how much blood he’d lost, but how calmly and collected he was taking it all in. It was almost as if he were used to it beyond caring or that it was simply blasé a fact about his life, to stir the same reaction they were sharing. “As you can imagine we both have a working library of human physiology we can make use of through applied learning and combat experience”, Sarah said as she worked, “We’ve effectively done this and taught ourselves to do this sufficiently enough that we could probably do it half-asleep or wide awake with a blindfold on at this point”, Max grunted in agreement. “But don’t worry, we’ve not been enhanced cybernetically or anything like that, we’re not cyborgs or whathaveyou, otherwise it would have been plainly obvious by now, plus our sense of humour clearly can’t be mistaken for a machines”, she said smiling to herself before Max added before he could help himself “she hopes”, as he chuckled lightly, as she smiled back good-naturedly.

“No, it’s more like a mental library composed of strictly conditioned “needs” and “don’ts” like you “need” to stop this mass bleeding but you “don’t” need to panic and make it worse sort of deal, but in greater detail. Behavioural conditioning steadies your hand and makes it follow receptive auto-conditioned commands from the brain like artificial muscle memory. It was all pretty scary when we first realized how effective it could be in any given situation and you’ve seen the results. We could probably knock out Bruce Lee in his prime, or outplay some of the chess grandmasters like Garry Kasparov if that was our aim in life”, she said in an idle tone. Sarah asked him to stand up and remove his clothing down to his underwear before he advised everyone that as a result of the suits “handling” he’d decided to go “commando” so he’d need a moment to don a pair of boxers from the multipack provided to Sarah. The agents couldn’t help but smirk at the absurdity of the situation, but it was a welcome respite from the horrors of the day, as they gave him a moment to their turned backs to essentially strip and dress himself momentarily. Sarah on the other hand couldn’t help herself as she started singing “You Can Leave Your Hat On”, by Joe Cocker, which just happened to be the song used at the end of “The Full Monty”, as Clara, Walter and even Hartwell couldn’t help but laugh to themselves at the sheer absurdity of the situation, before the singing died down with a warm chuckle and they resumed the examination.

“Sorry, I’ve been wanting to do that for a long time, especially in front of a crowd”, she said with a toothy smile as Max simply smiled back good-naturedly. They turned back and he stood replete in boxers and a small armies worth of minor injuries as he stood legs spread, in an open stance, arms up at his sides. Sarah proceeded to test intricately for bone breaks, muscle and tendon tears as well as fractures covering all the areas she was already familiar with, before spreading her examination to the rest of his body. Pound for pound he was a bulky, muscular example of what a bodybuilder in his prime would look like. Chorded strength seemed to radiate through him, every piece of his musculature seemed perfectly in line with his distinct combat role as a heavy suppressant in battle, capable of bearing an obscene of punishment and tote armour and weapons well beyond the normal scope of a typical person. What was unnerving was not the definition of his body now adapted to becoming a weapon, as Sarah prodded and tested, sewed and adhesively sealed him up, making use of the sponge along with all of the other tools in the medical kit, but how still he could remain so still, almost like a bear trap that had not yet sprung on an unwitting victim. “I can’t read your thoughts”, he said, even as he had his back turned to them “but I can read your pheromones, we both can, and I am not an alligator ready to strike at a moment’s notice, it’s just me. Although we understand your need to know what’s going on, don’t worry that time will come soon as we’re finished here, so I recommend you take a seat. Because I don’t know whether you noticed or not, but you’ve been standing this entire time and Walter’s hand hasn’t left his gun on his hip, since we first came down here, which is again understandable. To his credit though, he hasn’t unbuttoned the holster yet”, he added evenly, even as Sarah uttered a small, self-amused chuckle as he said this.

All three agents took a moment to absorb everything he’d said as they realized they had in fact not taken a seat the entire time, conceding maybe they had been understandably too on edge as well as morbidly curious, to do anything else but look on and inspect the true extent of the damage they’d. That, along with everything else that had transpired over the past half hour or so had effectively humanized both, former sleeper agents in their eyes. They jointly took a seat on the opposite end of the long bench table they’d been using to set up the medical supplies for easy use, as they watched her patch him up with relentless efficiency but also with attention to detail and care. She effectively treated his wounds in the same fashion she treated her enemies, with effective speed and agility. Her hands seemed to dance over his body, moving at speeds that seemed to blur and lose definition sometimes but never their precision. It was a strange sight to behold, a mix of combat efficiency and almost detached, medical grace that seemed at odds with her usual demeanour of casual banter matched by her deadly intent. Within a few minutes, she shifted to his front, repeating the same process on his abdomen and chest, his abs rippling lightly with each shallow breath he took, before she shifted to his equally muscular limbs, starting with his legs.

They were equally defined and built as his arms, as her prodding fingers had to nestle themselves deep within the tissue to test for breaks or bruises, which he bore with surprising stoicism. She patched him up as she examined his armpits in case he was similarly bleeding from them before she was satisfied they weren’t and instructed him to sit down, his arms still outstretched out to his sides, so that she could begin examining them closer to her own height. Max obviously dwarfed her by several feet, like everyone else in the room, less so for director Hartwell who was also noticeably taller than average. Part of the inspection was seeing how well they could each follow through with direct instructions, shedding light on the psychological as well as physical nature of their health through their compliance. Examining his arms, hands, and knuckles for any breaks or dislocations before she was happy to move on to his neck and face. It was remarkably untouched when compared to the rest of his body, which was a small victory on its own, as she checked for any signs of concussion. “Okay, we seem to be ready”, she said “You can robe up now”, she said, as he took up the second bathrobe he’d set aside for himself, a mirror image of her own in simple black. They both took their seats facing the agents, gathering up the needles, thread, tweezers, tubes of glue, compresses, antiseptics and cotton pads they’d used up. They disposed of it all in the same bucket Sarah had dumped the remains of Max’s shirt in before tying up the bin lining secured around it, organizing what was left of the medical supplies in a large, plastic green container, marked with “First Aid” with a red cross on a white background sticker at its centre.

“Okay, the first question we’ll answer without you asking is “What are the Cultura Wars”, Max said, as he looked over to Sarah who nodded, knowing it was most probably the most pertinent question they had. “Okay, I’m going to need a piece of paper and pen”, he said as they looked around momentarily before they found one in the nearby work desk drawer laden with tools designed for crafting and destined to come into use for repairing and even enhancing their armour and weapons. “Okay”, he said suppressing a yawn, as he covered his mouth with his open hand before he passed his hand through his lengths of long hair, his obvious exhaustion showing through and mirroring their own.

He took the notebook he’d found along with a black pen, tested the ballpoint tip and when he found it working, it spread the flip notebook flatly open so that he could use two spread-out sheets of paper at once. He drew a simple circle on either end, on one point he put the current year, and on the other, the year designated only as 2XXX. “Now imagine the course of history as we know it, cavemen turn to modern man, modern man pursues the arms race, conquers the known world, nations rise and so on. It fits a routine almost anyone who studied history at length can say “Okay here is where they repeat the mistakes of the past and here is where we can take advantage”, right? It’s a repeating cycle we have yet to fully avoid as economies shift and political favours shift with them, along with the predictable nature of leaders and so on that lead to outstanding conflicts as well as countless other factors that can be summed up over time”, he said almost dismissively. “But here”, he said pointing at the 2XXX point on the other end of the opposite page, is where someone...” Sarah chimed in “Or someone’s”, as Max nodded to her “screws us all six to ten different ways from Sunday and then applied the Nth term to it violently in a sweaty orgy. So imagine a point in history that has yet to happen, which might never happen, which will be so catastrophic that they have to find a way to reset any possibility of it ever happening as many times as it takes, doing whatever is needed to avoid whatever conflict led to the planet yelling “uncle” because it couldn’t take any more”, he said dramatically but with a tone that was both controlled and earnest in his need to explain.

“So let’s say here in 2039”, he drew a connecting line between both circles connecting through the centre of the separate notebook pages and marked a point on the line with “Cultura Wars” under that year. “This is where the original conflict takes place, instead of...” he pointed further down to the circle to the current year. “They’ve effectively sped up the current series of events to their liking as a necessary evil, to make sure they have control over the world’s armaments so they can deplete them. All to make sure no one’s trigger finger with the access codes takes that one shot they would need to effectively kill the world at any given time, but that’s not all”, he said as he handed over the pen to Sarah who happily obliged.

“To do so they can’t just send someone back in time, especially someone who doesn’t exist yet in case he kills his great grandfather to the power of three by accident and ceases to exist along with the whole possibility of the paradox, which is best left alone. They also can’t just send a whole army because the key word is “control”, under their own terms and a high-tech militia from the future no matter how well armed essentially only has one outcome when they strand themselves in the past, given a long enough time scale”, she said implying certain death as she let it settle in the room. “Never mind the vast amounts of exotic energy needed to punch a hole through time and then seal it up again in their wake, on the same planet “they” almost killed outright the first time”, she said slightly bitterly. “So, what do they do? They send data instead, a working self-extracting and installing A.I. hub of operations leeching off exploited servers on a worldwide basis before it can organize its computing power source securely from a remote location or locations. It’ll be much more efficient and less power-hungry than any current adapted form of technology they could predict available at the time, like comparing a cassette tape player to a modern smartphone. They still need people though to man and maintain it, and a tireless robot army slash workforce isn’t gonna be conspicuous or easy to maintain, regardless of what some might say about using androids. It requires materials, maintenance and a way to constantly monitor it much like a server farm only doubly so for its “employees” if you go the robotics route. So they think well there are eight billion human beings on the planet, and a good portion of them are addicts to media consumption through handheld as well as electronic home devices whether they’d like to admit it or not. They can act as the catalyst for spawning the first working prototypes for a new reprogramming effort to enlist a working army for the future, today!”, she said at the end with a dramatic flourish over her outstretched hands and a cheery almost mechanical smile spread across her lips, parroting what countless corporate marketing schemes and propaganda slogans had done in the past when promoting an advanced, almost futuristic product. “History repeats itself too many times, especially for “them” not to notice”, Max said before Sarah continued with a more restrained demeanour.

“They took information they stockpiled like weapons, worth more than anything you’ll ever find in the stock market and they juiced us up until we couldn’t see or in some cases pee straight, taking it from what they’d recorded in the...”, and she pointed at the marked point in time that read “Cultura Wars”. “And then this one” marking another conflict but with no name or year “and this one” another marking no name, no year “and again, and again”, she said marking the line half a dozen times. “And those are just the ones we’re allowed to know about but haven’t been allowed to peek into yet, sometimes by it’s triggered by a natural event in time or a person we recognize that might spark it, for others we have to wait until a pre-arranged point in time or...”, she said looking over to Max. “We essentially peel open the mental envelope in our minds through an extreme form of meditative state, which might fry our brains in the process if we push too hard, too fast, as they’ve built in redundancies concerning our “rank and status” as agents. It’s just in case we try and sneak ahead to the ending and “spoil” it for everyone else”, Max said flatly.

“But fear not”, Sarah said dramatically her cheery attitude seemingly putting them all on edge except Max, as he gave her a similar look to the one he had when Clara and Walter had first met them both in the interrogation room that expressed “your frightening them”. This time though she relented as she said in a much softer tone “For say every hundred or so people they fail to “recruit” who die as a result of the digital reprogramming, one of them succeeds and further refines the process” “ She said. “But out of those that do succeed in the prototype stages it allows them certain ... leeway to explore abilities and techniques not essentially available or readily baked into the mark one series that succeeds any “beta tester”, who can also opt to “update” which is what we are”, she said calmly but firmly. “Now despite what you may have seen, guns, arachnid suits, invisible cannibal children, the overkill in general, it doesn’t lay a finger on what’s ahead of us or who we need to find first”, she said as she looked over to Max. She was almost giddy at holding back like a child in her favourite candy store of horrors who couldn’t help but want to pick the biggest one out.

“We mentioned him before in our little “history of spiders” sesh we had with Clara and Walter, maybe you two remember him?” she asked them excitedly. Her eyes glinted with a mix of anticipation and something more sinister that made even Hartwell swallow hard before Max finally said “Bach. The granddaddy of “Spiders” especially the “Long-legs” series, essentially “Dracula”, we need to find him, but it’ll make more sense if we explain why”, he said before they began raising much-needed questions, as Sarah began. “Bach is not his real name, it’s just what urban myths running around information-gathering circles call him, because of what happened to a team of scorpions when they sent in to reign in his ass”, she said gleefully. “But he blew them away”, she said clenching and then splaying out her fists in a gesture of explosive power. “Like it was nothing”, she said with a look that marked out her admiration for the man. “Without actually using explosives of any kind”, Max continued. “Which is damned near impossible, as you’ve seen the degree of armour and weaponry a fully manned Scorpion team can heft, and what it took both of us with the use of dirty tactics to outmanoeuvre them. No, he did it with the first perfected traps we came across like the “web garrotte wire” one and the “necrotic needle” trap amongst others. And all whilst he was listening to what you’ve probably guessed as the best of “Bach” which was the last thing each unit recorded on their onboard sensor suite which doubled as recording equipment for further analysis”, Max added.

“The man was so effective at avoiding capture that he redacted his own personnel file permanently, everywhere, and was said to retain the only true original copy, how crazy was that!”, Sarah almost shouted, as she stood up off her seat, with a brilliant smile on her lips before she settled down again. Max said “Some could say he became an “enemy of the state” when he went rogue not just against his nation or faction or whatever was left at that time, but everyone and everything. I’d like to think though he just became us”, he said indicating to both of them quickly. “Free from reprogramming and out of reach from anyone who possibly knew where he was, who he knew wouldn’t adopt the “bazooka to kill a flea” option because of the state of the world”, Max said with some satisfaction.

“Because in the end they didn’t”, he confirmed before Sarah chimed in “The problem was the world wasn’t getting any easier to live in, conflict after conflict, war after war, so what I imagine “they” are trying to do now is essentially “capture” him in his youth along with other key figures as part of their plan. They need to do it before they pop up on their radar officially and convert them fully before they become legends and use a perfected form of the reprogramming software so that they can turn them into the monsters they need to round up all the other one’s” she said. “Unless we do it first and essentially save them from themselves or...”, she left the sentence hanging in the air, knowing if they couldn’t get to them in time, a bullet in the head to deprive their enemy of such a valuable asset was just as viable. “In reality, a “perfected” Bach would be worth ten of me or even Sarah in our current state of readiness, fighting ability and experience”, he said as Sarah nodded to him in agreement. “It’s no wonder the scorpions didn’t stand a chance, they might as well have thrown themselves into the pot of “food” he was probably brewing at the time and asked him to keep it on a slow burn for the sake of the seasoning”, Sarah said with a dismissive snort as she slouched forwards on the table.

“One of our goals should be finding him along with other potential, key figures we may be able to locate in our current timeline, which won’t be easy. His class of Spider suggests a complete isolationist, possibly anti-social but think more Hannibal the Cannibal than the Unabomber. He can come up with homemade traps, weapons, and armour, but he’d rather dispense with them and talk you to death first, by lulling you into his confidence and offering you a simple poison in a cup of his favourite wine before he cooks and preserves what’s left of you at the end of a “meal” in his pantry”, Max said plainly. “The man has ... become an archetype no one can live up to, maybe not even himself if we ever meet him in person”, he said bluntly. “That and we need to find the scientists”, Sarah added, as Max nodded. As she continued saying “probably from an existing branch in functional physics today, although we wouldn’t discount anything like theoretical sciences or well-known military engineers. It would be someone they’d target but never risk brainwashing until they’d perfected the subliminal routines, and could guarantee at least a 99.9 chance of non-rejection of the reprogramming and future adjustments in the way or “updates”, as each new set of unlocked information takes its toll”. Max grunted in agreement as he said “the last one took me three days to get over, in that time...”, he said, as he gestured if he could handle her “tooth” as she slipped him the blade she’d never relinquished until now handle first to him reluctantly. “ ... I made this”, he said holding it up to his face and turning it around precariously, as it bisected his expression evenly in two between its metallic edge before him. “You ever heard of a vorpal sword?” he said curiously as he looked towards the three agents, through the blade itself as he marvelled at it.

“It’s from a book, “Through the Looking Glass” by Lewis Carrol, it’s a sword that can cut through anything”, Hartwell replied with a hint of curiosity. Max nodded, handing the dagger back to Sarah, handle first, as he asked her to kindly explain why she called it her “tooth”, as she took the blade with a gentle nod. “See if the “sword” had an antithesis it was the Jabberwocky, as mentioned in Lewis Carrol’s poem, and this”, she said indicating with her eyes now fully focussed on its cutting edge “would effectively be one of its teeth”, she said by way of clarification. She set it down by ramming it lightly tip first with the same amount of pressure you might use to move a glass cup across a table softly, as all three agents watched it cut through the steel workbench neatly and almost shift into it, minus a few sparks of resistance on the part of the table though they were few, as she let it rest there. The edge rested through the table in between her parted legs. All three agents to their combined credit did not jump immediately, as Hartwell asked “You mean to say it can cut through anything?”, he said before anyone else could voice the question to which Sarah couldn’t help but smile widely with an almost maniacal grin and said, “except your happy thoughts”. Before Max could add “In reality it can essentially cut through most materials, I effectively made it when we were “assigned” to a repurposed warehouse with advanced computer equipment. It was equipped with forging equipment like diamond cutting lasers and an armoured barracks we made use of whilst we were first going through “orientation” in our roles. It took three high-powered lasers stronger than anything we currently have, capable diamonds let alone anything else these days, working in synchronicity as industrial-grade coolant was applied to the blade to keep it from snapping off. I combined current-day Damascus steel, tungsten and a third binding polymer which sounds like six different names collectively moulded into one, which I’ll forgo trying to butcher in its pronunciation. A succession of failed attempts followed before I got the proportions correct per square inch, along with temperature saturation and the angle of each oscillating laser just right, to cut and refine the methodology before I came up with my first working model. This also snapped in two after practical use, until I based it on a more “modern” design and a less “fantastical” one hence its design and size”, he said as he asked if he could demonstrate for a moment, as she agreed with less but still a noticeable amount of reluctance.

As she retrieved the weapon easily from its lodged position and handed it to him, handle first. “In science fiction terms the ideal blade that could cut through anything would be termed roughly as having a mono-molecular edge or something similar. The best of my ability in weapon forging and three days in an entranced state of constant work that nearly killed me, as they “updated” my system, led to this. I think in part it’s because of my vocation before this, my love of storytelling coupled with my creativity and determination. All I remember was asking myself what could I make for the “demure rogue in the next room”, he said looking over at Sarah who rightly nudged him in his arm playfully. “When we first met and had little in common, let alone anything to work with except a mutual inability to escape our situation. “So I made her a knife, capable of cutting down or so I hoped her greatest fears, but unfortunately I also gave her a new one, we both now carry to a certain extent”, he said his tone becoming sombre. “Please don’t misinterpret”, he said as he balanced the edge of the combat tip on the tip of his index finger and held it there upright, as it lightly pierced the skin of his fingertip without him flinching in protest. “This is by far a powerful weapon in its own right, but never to be rivalled by the will that executes that force and the responsibility taken for it. Hence any signs of reluctance you might observe on her part to give it up, even to me” he said as he moved his hand and held out the knife still balanced on the tip of his finger to Sarah as she took it gently.

She noticed the bleeding paper-cut-sized neat opening on his fingertip where it had lightly pierced the skin and without being able to hold herself back reflexively brought her lips to suck at the wound. “Also”, he said by way of explanation for her action “our saliva is partly adhesive in nature when exposed to air”, he said with a smile as Sarah quickly parted her lips from his finger. “But only when exposed to air for a prolonged period, and we don’t use it as such for say injuries like those you’ve seen us patch up now if there’s an alternative, because its obviously a very “intimate” act as you might imagine, especially if you had to have someone practically laminate your body one lick at a time”, he said as evenly as he could. “But before you ask, no it does not affect other acts of “intimacy”, not because we’ve tested it but because...”, he tapped his index finger to his temple indicating to the library of information available to them on the complete anatomy and state of their bodies, which they had available as well as practical uses of their abilities. “So yeah”, Sarah said playfully, “get your minds out of the gutter and ask any questions we haven’t thought of answering yet before we go off and take an ice bath”, she said, which they’d prepared beforehand in the two-man sized tub they’d visited before coming down. Noting mentally how the water should be at least partially chilly by now to help reduce the swelling of their injuries as well as the muscle strain they’d collected over the length of the day amongst other things.

The three agents looked at each other awkwardly before Clara spoke up, “How do you deal with the ... moral implications of what you do?” she asked her voice a tad shakier than she’d have liked it to be. Max simply looked at Sarah who looked at him in turn with a serious but gentle look on her face before he said “We do it because we “do” have morals, otherwise we’d be simple chess pieces on a board getting ready to be wiped out at any given time. We morally make the decision to fight not simply because we have no option, but because those who aren’t in our position wish they were and had the will to make any decision at all, which has already been stripped from them”, he said recalling how he’d effectively “disarmed” the grenadier before. “If you’ll let me I’d like to offer you an example, although I fear it’ll do more damage than anything, even though it involves nothing more than telling you a little more about “Cultura”, he said as he offered them the choice to learn more about the conflict itself, and a defining facet of how it was fought.

The agents nodded unsteadily as a group, and Max began his narrative “Imagine a sweat-choked jungle with natives armed to the teeth, not with pitchforks but with fully insulated and temperature regulated body armour, and rifles loaded with more armour piercing rounds than a fully stocked tank could shake off. For something like that you need a new kind of “specialist unit” that could excel at guerrilla warfare, using agile, strike and fade tactics that could sew terror into the enemy, whilst at the same time endeavouring to never get caught themselves. To permeate the illusion that their attackers were more than human, more than simple men and women so that no matter how well these natives thought they were armed, these new creatures were something they couldn’t possibly face down with just guns and guts, although essentially they lost both”, he said sadly. Sarah with a dark and foreshadowing tone continued as she said “Enter the Chiroptera, which translated from Latin means “hand-wing” if you remember we touched on this before?”, Sarah stated, as Max nodded in turn before she continued.