Chapter 51: Unconventional

The sputtering motor had earlier signaled to Logan that he was running out of gas. Or something else was wrong, he really wasn’t sure, but the hesitation in the four-wheeler’s momentum told him enough to start looking for his next steps.

He’d only gotten maybe ten minutes away from the air and port complex before he’d had to abandon the four-wheeler along a rough trail which led up a small rise somewhere beyond the complex. He’d seen only one person since escaping his pursuers, an old woman carrying a bundle of dirty rags down a dirt path. She hadn’t even looked up as he zoomed past her.

Whether his pursuers had given up, Logan had no way of knowing.

He gathered his wits after leaving the vehicle and found a high spot on the rise which overlooked the complex. The sounds of gunfire had exploded below him and Finch’s heart raced with fear and excitement. This hero stuff is intense! Three or four large black high-hull boats raced up towards shore and several helicopters sprayed burst of heavy ammunition down onto the few soldiers still around the port. Logan realized that if he’d been captured, those bullets would surely have been hammering down on him right then.

Instead, he watched in awe as soldiers in dark suits swarmed up the dock and rappelled out of the helicopters, the invading forces calming the situation almost immediately, gunfire gone quiet within two minutes of their arrival. Whoever the new group might be, they’d certainly had no qualms about using deadly force against Logan’s captors, and for that, the boy was rather thankful.

But he’d been through enough by then to trust nothing. He knew there were more than two sides in this war, and there was no guarantee he’d be in trustworthy hands should he make an approach back to the port.

Logan was exhausted, though. Beyond exhausted. Starving, thirsty, every muscle spasming and locking up in pain. It was enough to force down his instinct to keep moving. He found a spot covered by bushes and hidden from anyone not close by and curled up, twitching in painful muscle cramps. The exhaustion won out over the pain, but it was a hard slog right till the end.

“Gene!” Tamara exploded in arms extended and rushing legs. She all but leapt into his body. He’d barely stepped through the doorway when she’d practically tackled him.

“Tamara!” he exclaimed, his arms squeezing her so tight she couldn’t breath. Tamara cared not one bit to be in Gene’s vice.

The reunion was sudden and so long in the waiting that Tamara nearly mounted the man right then, the same emotions which had driven her to take her son inside her made her need to mate with Gene powerful and almost unstoppable. It was only when she saw Lauren step in that a different set of emotions won out. “Oh, God!” she cried as Lauren joined her embrace with Gene.

“Mom!” The three hugged tightly and soon a fourth, Finch, wrapped himself inside their arms.

Tamara simply couldn’t believe they were all together again. It had been weeks. So many hard, difficult, confusing, exciting, dangerous weeks on the run.

It wasn’t complete, though, she realized with horror. “Where’s Logan?” She hadn’t heard his name mentioned, and it was clear he was not about to step into the room.

“No one is sure right now,” said the tall, deep-voiced man who’d broken the news about Gene and Lauren coming to see her. “He was in Malta, of that we’re certain. But he hasn’t been seen since Sagal got you two out of there. She spotted him in the warehouse, but there was no way to get all three of you out.”

“She just left him there! Fuck!” Tamara exploded. “You left my son behind?!”

Gene’s calm voice took the edge off, but just a little. “Easy, Tam ... I understand it was a rather hot location. Damned lucky to get the two of you out. Damned lucky. We’re trying to find Logan right now, though...”

He trailed off and the tall, handsome man nearby finished his thought, “There are ... other priorities...”

“Other fucking priorities?” Tamara exploded again.

“Your son is most likely fine, and ... if he’s not ... we likely cannot help him.” When Tamara drew in breath to shout at him, the man rested a hand on her forearm and said calmly, “Mrs. Polanski, I’ll do everything I can for your son, I promise, but right now, we’re racing against time. The whole world is at stake, and we’re still trying to figure out where to find all the puzzle pieces we need to put together to regain control.”

Tamara spat, “Who the fuck are you, anyway.”

“Aristotle Bridgewater. You’re on my boat and under my protection.”

“Holly’s father,” Gene added evenly.

Bridgewater continued, “We almost rescued you in Vecchio but Utah got to you first.”

Tamara’s head swam trying to recall the details. “Utah? You mean Chaster Haul?”

“Same,” the man replied. “He goes by many names.”

“He killed my friend...”

“O’Leary?”

“Marcus Hannigan.”

“Red-haired man, shot in Vecchio?”

“That’s him,” Tamara groaned, feeling the weight of his loss.

“He’s quite alive, I’m happy to say,” Bridgewater told her, “not well, exactly, but alive, last I checked.”

Tamara’s heart swelled and raced, “Is he here?”

Gene could tell his wife’s attachment to O’Leary was more than just as companion. He knew her well enough to read between the lines and see the emotional weight of her concern. He wasn’t exactly sure how to deal with that, but given how Gene and Holly had developed something more than just friendship, he was not about to think too deeply on things.

And he utterly refused to recall the details of his mating with Lauren hours earlier. That was a can of worms he simply couldn’t deal with in the middle of all this.

His reunion with his wife was something difficult to fully grasp. Gene had been overwhelmed, both joyous and in disbelief. When Holly had told him on the chopper that they had rescued Tamara and Finch from Malta and were taking them to the Cambridge, he’d refused to let himself get too excited. He hadn’t even told Lauren since it seemed that every time they got close to seeing each other again, his wife ended up being moved elsewhere or captured again. Only when he’d seen her face, her body covered only in white underwear, did he give in. Gene might have even cried a little, but he’d done his best to wipe away the tears before the four-way embrace broke apart with concerns for the missing Logan.

“No,” Bridgewater said in reply to Tamara’s question about O’Leary, “he’s in a medical ward in Israel. Certainly had a bad day, that man, but last I’d heard, he was stable. Unconscious, but stable.”

Gene saw a measured relief wash over Tamara’s face. She grasped Gene’s hand and squeezed it as if she needed reassurance that he was still there. She asked, “So what happens now? How do we find my son?”

Bridgewater didn’t hesitate to completely destroy any fantasy of prioritizing Logan. “We need to unlock you, Mrs. Polanski. We need to know what you know.”

“What I know?”

Gene spoke up, “It seems ... you were as much a part of Whitehead as I was ... We were ... brainwashed, I suppose. Brainwashed to forget your involvement. I only remembered when we found a key to my lost memories. But I’m just a key into yours, it seems, and Victor, and Utah, and who the fuck else knows who all want whatever it is inside your head to disappear, or reappear, or, fuck,” Gene growled, “whatever is in there is important, that’s about all we know. Something Victor needs to disappear or open or turn on.”

Tamara thought a moment, then said, “Haul mentioned something ... that I knew ... while we were in his sub. He didn’t say what,” she added quickly, “only that he wanted to access it. He didn’t want me dead, at least not immediately. He seemed to think I had knowledge which could turn Victor’s plan against him. Haul wanted revenge against Victor, I—”

Bridgewater cut her off. “To the status room. Hurry. We need to record everything you know. Hurry!”

Tamara jogged beside Gene, her head turning to ensure Lauren and Finch were with them, as they raced down one metal corridor after another, Tamara trying to recall every word Haul spoke to her on the submarine.

She’d been so urgent and needful that Finch wondered if what he’d done with his mother might have meant she was not in her right mind. The idea that she wasn’t herself while she fucked him made Finch cringe as they were settled in status room, another metal-walled enclosure with an oval table with seating for two dozen people. Only half that were inside. He and Lauren, his parents, Bridgewater and Holly, a few others.

His mother began talking rapidly when Bridgewater had insisted she continue.

“I don’t know much, really,” she said, “but there’s something inside me ... and not just information, I think. Haul made it clear I had a tracker in me somewhere, possibly more than a tracker. I’ve had it for years, he said.”

Bridgewater nodded and Finch wondered if the man knew more about his mother than he’d let on.

“Victor wants billions dead, Haul said, but Haul wanted to turn the tables and instead kill Victor and some ‘thousands’ who had made some wrong choice.”

“The Carthage Event,” Bridgewater nodded again, “please, go on.”

“Haul said that whatever was inside me could be used against Victor and that he needed some horrible man he called the Mantis to unlock me. Whatever it is I know, Haul was going to use it to make a change in Victor’s plans. That’s really about all I know.”

Finch could see the way the weeks on the run had aged his mother. Lines and blemishes, dark patches, rough skin, they all added years to her face and hands. She was gorgeous, without a doubt, but even Finch recognized how difficult the journey had been for her. He didn’t know the details of her weeks running, and Finch really hoped the worst sorts of things had not happened to her.

Gene spoke up, “Does this mean anything, Tam? Don’t Disturb the Monkey with the Golden Tambourine. Anything?” Gene’s pulse throbbed in his veins in expectation.

Tamara remained rather calm, shaking her head, “No, sorry ... nothing.”

“Nothing?!” Gene exclaimed, sure that the phrase was the one needed to open her up. “You feel nothing when I say don’t disturb the monkey with the golden tambourine?” He couldn’t believe the words had no effect.

“Nothing,” she comfirmed.

Gene looked at Bridgewater and Holly in shock. “I was so sure...”

Bridgewater betrayed nothing of any additional concerns from that non-event. “We’re missing something here.” He turned to Holly, “See if our man has arrived.”

When the blonde left the room, Gene asked, “Who?”

“Lee Lee, an old ... friend ... of the family, of a sort.”

“The mind-fuck guy, Anna’s ex or something,” Gene replied.

“Basically. He should be here by now. If anyone can get inside her head, Lee Lee can.”

The phrase had meant nothing to her, nothing at all. It sounded like some silly line from a children’s rhyme or perhaps lyrics from a philosophical rock song out of the seventies. Whatever it was, it didn’t match anything currently accessible inside Tamara’s head. She had seen the confusion on Gene’s face when she had no meaningful response.

The door rolled open a moment later and Holly slid through the opening, followed by a thin, good-looking Korean man with short, black hair and a wetsuit to match his locks. His glasses were thin and oval, resting on thin wire frames curled behind his ears.

“Lee Lee, good to see you after so long,” Bridgewater told the man while shaking his hand, “Sorry we have no time to catch up. This is her. This is Quincy.”

“Huh?” she heard Lauren say, “Who’s Quincy?”

“Ah, right,” Bridgewater said, “old habit, using that name ... Tamara. This is Tamara Polanski.”

The Korean man looked at her and replied to Bridgewater, “Don’t think I’ll let you being alive slip away from further conversation, Aristotle, but I appreciate your ... urgency. Tamara,” he said, directing his words at her, “I understand you’ve a bit of a blockage that needs my assistance. We should start immediately.”

Tamara was confused and exhausted and in an odd state after such traumatic and erotic experiences over the last few weeks, including mating with her son. It caused her to joke wryly, “Jeez, Lee Lee, you should at least buy a girl dinner before you start probing inside her...”

The room was quiet. No one laughed. Lee Lee turned to Bridgewater with a very confused look.

The tall, handsome man’s mouth turned into a small smile. “A joke, my friend. One day, you’ll get those.”

There was a rush of motion as Lee Lee led her quickly out of the room and down into a medical bay, settling her on a cushioned seat. There was not much room inside, only Lee Lee and Gene in the room itself, others gathered around the narrow opening to observe.

“I’m afraid some of this might hurt a bit, but I’ll do what I can to numb you as I can.”

“What are you going to do?” Tamara asked with a bit of panic at the image flushing into her head of the bespectacled man sawing open her skull to look at her brain.

“Well,” he said in a cool, emotionless voice, “first I’ll give you a sedative to help you relax, then I’m going to try to find this device in your body. It could be very small, but if it is like the one I found in Poppy weeks ago, it should show up on a scan. Don’t wish to be forced into anything more... unconventional.”

“Unconventional.”

He shrugged, “Best not to worry right now...”

Lee Lee managed to stick the needle in her arm before she even realized it was in his hands, and the sedative took effect quickly. It left her with some awareness and alertness, no fear of falling asleep, but it certainly took the edge off of many of the swirling, troubling thoughts in her head.

It was nervewracking to watch as her mother was under the Korean man’s care. Even seeing the needle stuck into her arm was difficult for Lauren to witness, and she worried about just what sorts of horrible things he’d do to discover her secrets. None of this much made sense to Lauren. The terms, the people, it was beyond her understanding. All she was sure of was that she wanted her mother to be safe and to get this over with as quickly as possible. That, and to slide into bed with her father again.

Lauren couldn’t help that those moments played out as they did in her head, even when more pressing, mostly frightening, thoughts were already crowding her mind. But the warm strength stretching her vagina, the powerful spurts of her father’s seed, those had left her brain full of arousing memories and her mind was unwilling to let them go. Perhaps it was a defense mechanism, Lauren acknowledged, a way of going to a happy place when everything else was shit. Certainly, she knew, it was a very happy moment, sharing her bed and her body with her father.

“I’m going to need to focus,” Lee Lee called calmly to those watching from the doorway, “please ... leave me to work.”

The tall man Bridgewater ushered those watching back into the larger room and said, “I’ll go and keep watch. I’ll let you know if anything changes...”

“But—”

Lauren’s attempt to protest was cut short by the man’s raised hand. “Right now, Lee Lee needs silence and patience. You can’t help, and you’re only going to get in his way. This will take some time. It would be best, for everyone, to get some rest. Here or your bunks is your decision.”