Ageless

By Jeanne M. Haskin

Before 2020, no one dared to attack democracy directly from the inside, but OWL, the invisible one-world government, has plans for America. If it can install its presidential candidate, along with enzymatic control, a poisoned food supply, and enslavement to toxic cures, it will rule the U.S. efficiently.

Standing in its way are five of OWL’s top Russian operatives. Foul-mouthed and funny, they were birthed by Creation before there were gods or Creators. As warrior-born of the Ageless, Jihanna, Toro, Andrei, Juran, and Kirov defect simultaneously. To deprive OWL of hostages, they attempt to extract the gifted children undergoing hostile conditioning. Then they recruit rebels from The Morgue, slum-cities of the desperate, ruled by The Undertaker. Their objective is to overthrow OWL in Russia and wherever it may spread.

Unfortunately, the face of their enemy is Dr. Rudolph Flange, Jihanna’s former handler. When Flange launches the Apocalypse as a self-fulfilling prophecy, America joins the battle—and not on the side of the rebels.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Jeanne M. Haskin
• Release date: Jul 15, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301754441

Jeanne M. Haskin

The author is a participant in Operation eBook drop, which makes her fiction free in e-format to troops overseas.

Book preview

Chapter One

In the huge open arena of Foxborough’s Wright Stadium, the excitement of the crowd and the clashes on the football field faded to background noise as an unrecognizable power wrenched at Jihanna’s brain with the slithery lightning feel of a giant electric eel. Her synapses flared in a brilliant psychic surge, defending her instinctively, the way she’d drilled them to. Tics at her temple and jaw added magic to the mix. With ten years of practice at conjuring covertly, even the slightest twitch drew on layers of muscle memory.

The eel thrust harder, recoiling then re-launching, an immensity that pounded, blurring Jihanna’s vision. Although immaterial, it possessed formidable strength. It wanted her mind with a vengeance, not giving away who sent it.

As usual, her sense of humor intruded. Hostilities were less painful when Jihanna made fun of them. By now, she was good at it; she’d done it since early childhood.

Knock, knock.

Who’s there?

The enemy.

Which one?

All of us.

So resistance is meaningless? The line was adapted from Star Trek, an episode smuggled into Moscow in the year 2020. Since it opposed mind control, OWL had banned it.

It means you’re fucked, with a capital F, Jihanna supplied, warming up to her internal monologue.

You know, you might want to try something a little less direct.

Die, bitch. How’s that?

Because OWL was anything but humorous, joking provided a way to cope. It kept Jihanna out of the loony bin, at least publicly. Privately, she was past the point of help because OWL, the one-world government, didn’t want her dead, despite the pleasure it gleaned from torture. She had no idea who attacked her in America, where she sat beside Flange, her handler, waiting for OWL’s presidential hopeful to open the halftime show while her magic gestated in vials.

She cast a furtive glance at the sea of American football fans, dressed in blue jeans and ball caps, thin jackets, and sweatshirts. Most of them drank beer, and many of them stood, their conversations inaudible above the cheering and shouting. To judge by the fist-pumping and exaggerated body-language, it didn’t matter who won. People came for the show as proof of what was still real: that America hadn’t changed.

Unlike Russia, whose history of brutal government had made it easy for OWL to dominate, American democracy remained stronger than ever. As a barrier to OWL that it had no way to hurdle, it would have to be tunneled under or, more specifically, subverted.

Jihanna was here to do that because she had no choice. Unlike the presidential hopeful, she hadn’t been bought and groomed to destroy the American government. Instead, she’d been conditioned.

A probe with an iron backbone and searing needle-thin teeth tore through her neural pathways, bleeding her of energy as it drilled for her essence, leaving a purple ooze. Nerve tremors jerked Jihanna’s limbs, too slight to be noticeable…yet. Adrenaline jack-hammered through her veins. A fine sweat slicked her upper lip. Her skull shrieked, pushed to the breaking point. The sour smell of beer, sticky beneath her shoes and stronger in the autumn air, squeezed her stomach with a greasy, rising queasiness.

The eel, for lack of a better term, was everywhere and nowhere—she couldn’t grasp it, cast it out.

Her throat burned from a stream of silent curses. Anxiety squeezed her ribs. Lacking oxygen, she had to force her muscles into anaerobic respiration so no one would see her pant. She stilled her nerves with a torrent of will. Then she flicked her fingers, forming runes and symbols—lines of invisible code.

The eel shrank to a silver sheet that melded to her neurons. Pain vanished, and Jihanna expelled a breath of relief. Using the precious respite bought by her code, she searched for her attacker, guessing she hadn’t won.

The tiers of the stadium’s flip-up seats ascended in an oval around the football field under incandescent lights, where moths and mosquitoes whirled. The sky had the glow of gray pearl, sunless and cloudless at dusk.

Her code reached into the vastness, returning something strange.

The attack kept pointing to Jihanna, as if it stemmed from her. She searched deeper, longer, knowing that couldn’t be right.

As halftime arrived, players left the field. The cheering ended on cue and roughly half the Americans slumped in their plastic seats, weary from working two and three jobs, sometimes four. Faces, careworn and haggard, aged the young as well as the old. The other half of the audience perched on the edge of their seats. Unhappy with the economy and the increasing insecurity spreading from state to state, they’d come to meet the man who drew them into zealotry.

As yet, they lacked the look of people flinching in fear.

That would come. Worse, it would be her fault.

Her handler would ensure obedience. A lean man with neatly-groomed gray hair, lips pressed in a line, and eyes cold enough to freeze fire, Flange sat in the stands next to her. He wore street clothes, minus his usual lab coat. The eel didn’t stem from him, though the source had to be near.

Not for the first time, she could have used eyes in the back of her head. The thought became hilarious as she imagined disclosing that on a date.

Hey, baby, I’ve got something you want.

Boobs?

Nope. She cast a surreptitious glance at the anthills under her dress.

Legs a mile long?

Nope. A silent snort, although they weren’t quite stumps.

A really magnificent ass?

Nope. Not enough to cushion her seat. But take a look at the back of my head. Two perfect baby-blues, so you’ll never leave my sight.

Mmpfh. The man’s face turned green.

What’s that?

Her dream-date puked on her shoes. And the scenario made her laugh. Inside, if nowhere else, allowing no outward sign.

Did you speak? Her handler turned to her, the words clipped and cool.

Jihanna shook her head. She would have known a long time ago if he could penetrate her thoughts.

It wasn’t that he lacked power. Even now, she could brush his mind and catch the echo of a feedback loop.

Keep out, Keep Out, KEEP OUT.

Which was just as well because Jihanna wanted to.

To him, she wasn’t a person. And, thank God, not a sexual interest. He’d conditioned her to learn, and she’d put his abuse in perspective. Knowing his justifications would just pour salt in the wounds.

She was better off not knowing the rules of his elaborate games.

The sheet ripped free from her neurons, reverting to what it had been with an angry mental screech. Another thrust, exploding inside her head. This time, the eel burrowed in deep. It pulsed through her brain waves, entwining around her thoughts. No longer painful but not quiescent, changing her mental signature, becoming a part of her psyche.

Jihanna clutched the armrests and pushed herself upright. She stood, swaying, until her handler gripped her elbow.

Stupid. She’d let him see her distress for the first time in years.

His eyes narrowed in calculation. You may seek out the washroom to vomit, once Ross has spoken.

To judge by her handler’s reaction, he knew what she suffered. It might be the result of a test: one of too many in memory, or some form of latent energy imparted by Flange’s experiments. A nascent trait, ruthlessly cultivated.

Seething, she glared at the stage being wheeled onto the field, an eight-by-ten platform with a bunting of red, white, and blue. Matching cloth covered its backboard. Speakers flanking the stage connected to a standing microphone, where a middle-aged, sandy-haired man with plain, forgettable features appeared eager and earnest. Dressed in a thin jacket and blue jeans, he chose to ride the platform instead of ascending the steps, like the winner of a pageant, a president-elect, rather than a dark-horse candidate secretly backed by OWL.

Though Americans knew little about his private past, even the newspapers in Moscow were acquainted with Stuart Ross.

He’d served a brief stint as a Congressman by stepping into the shoes of his assassinated predecessor—a Republican who hadn’t been real enough to lead Real America. Private militias and right-wing extremists had flocked to Ross, not because he walked their walk but because he spoke their language.

A reporter who’d counted the number of times Ross referred to watering the tree of liberty (a call for revolutionary violence), sealing the borders and ousting immigrants—from the second generation forward, no matter their race, contribution or origin—and Real America without apology had disappeared immediately. His body parts were later delivered in trash bags to the offices of twelve Congressional Democrats, who’d stepped down from office and hadn’t dared to pack before they got the hell out of Washington.

Now Ross sang into the microphone, his image projected via the scoreboard, in case anyone missed the hand over his heart and the honest tears in his eyes. As America the Beautiful rolled forth in his vibrant tenor, the audience joined in, deeply touched and happy to, although Ross was only a figurehead conditioned to pull their strings, push their buttons, and make them weak.

Her handler stood to mimic the crowd, dragging Jihanna up with him. They remained silent to the end, when Ross detached the microphone and walked with it to the backboard. With a flourish, he tore down the curtain to expose a black and red banner that read:

DEMOCRACY IS THE MEANS BY WHICH THOSE WHO ADORE AUTHORITY AND CRAVE THE SECURITY OF SERVITUDE CAN USE THEIR SUPERIOR NUMBERS TO ENSLAVE THOSE WHO WISH TO BE FREE.

This wasn’t political posturing. Ross attacked America’s core value and the source of the country’s pride. If elected, he would kill the power to vote. Everyone present was now aware of it; he had never been this blunt.

Some spectators gasped. Others moaned. Many sank into their seats with the peculiar boneless look of people about to faint. Then a swell of appreciation rose from the seats nearest Ross as his followers stamped their feet, clapped their hands and cheered.

We will have safety, Ross exhorted, stalking the stage with the microphone, "security, and morality. America is not, and was never born to be, a godless abomination, but that is what they’ve made of it. He paused, reflectively, to let the crowd decide what was meant by they, an all-encompassing term that could have meant the ACLU, corrupt servants of government, or everyone and anyone, whatever the flavor of prejudice. Ross pointed to the front-row seats, acknowledging his supporters. Let the Commandments be our guide as we enrich the lives of our elderly! Let us come together to heal them and improve the lives of all with unprecedented support for the giants of modern medicine! Let us cast out foreign elements to take back Real America!"

A roar burst from his followers—the sound of pure insanity.

Jihanna bolted from her seat, her dress soaked with sweat. She would do more than vomit when she visited the washroom. The eel needed to be torn out—at any risk, for any cost. Before she became an un-person, a new trick, one that OWL had lacked.

The power of the eel grew stronger. Sparks of purple and silver burned at the back of her eyes. Jihanna felt for the seats to the right of the steps, murmuring apologies as she touched people’s arms and shoulders.

Someone stood to help. Miss, are you all right? A hand touched her elbow, the man’s aura a golden glow: a safe color, one of compassion.

Sick, Jihanna gasped. I—

You look it, the man said kindly. I’ll help you to the ladies’ room. He walked beside her, catching her when she stumbled. Easy there. They emerged onto a landing, where he guided her down an aisle, dark between concrete walls. It’s not far from here.

The sparks became fireworks. A door opened, leaking the smell of urine and a flash of fluorescent light. The man gave her a little push, and she slid on a paper towel.

Should I wait? the man asked.

No. Thank you. A sense of open space, stalls and sinks on opposite sides. Jihanna flailed for the door and swung it closed.

A scent: one she should know but didn’t. It was…raw, elemental, the taste of hot iron blistering her tongue. Something emerged from one of the stalls: its aura black-tinged magenta, a hue of imminent danger. Too close, it lunged toward her, before she could…what? Her mind was a bruise of purple and silver, her thoughts oddly disjointed. Kill it. Kick its ass all over the washroom. Damn it, you know how to. Except she…didn’t.

Its arm wrapped tight around her waist, yanking her against it. Its free hand covered her nose and mouth.

Can’t breathe.

Drowning.

TEETH pierced her neck: the fangs of a rattlesnake, hooking her, curving in deep. A…vampire? She’d read stories, seen movies. This wasn’t to be believed. Her handler had sent her here and set her up for this. Someone had bioengineered the thing, basing it on myth; a mind that could infiltrate.

If the eel had been foreplay, it would finish the job here.

Its voice resounded inside her head: All is as it should be. Drink and become Ageless. The creature emphasized the last word, as if she should know what it meant. Then it removed its arm from her waist, and pressed a wrist to her lips. A smear of that iron scent was forced into her mouth. She gagged, unable to breathe, fighting to regurgitate.

A flare: too hot, too bright, too sharp, shattered Jihanna’s mind.

Its voice, guttural: I have opened you to such power that you may never test its limits. Fight well, Jihanna.

Falling.

Footsteps fading.

Fight well for whom? For Flange, you stupid shit! If he’d made her a pseudo-vampire, his creature would know her every thought. Wasn’t that what the stories said? Oh no. No, no, no. Not when everything she’d done had been an impossible compromise to hide her deepest secrets. Magic she couldn’t—wouldn’t—give up. What if she had no choice?

There was only one way to find out.

Jihanna bashed her head on the tile, feeling it cave with a numbing crunch. She collapsed onto her side, her hands pressed to her forehead. Blood, hot and silver, poured between her fingers. Then her skull moved, jerking shards back into position, realigning and fusing.

Silver blood was bad.

Super-healing was worse. It confirmed that the thing had changed her to suit her handler’s purpose. That she’d be an open book, unable to deny him anything. This filled her with such rage and an immediate need to die that only one thing stopped her from killing herself right then.

The vials… Once her handler used her magic to infect the water supply, it would alter American enzymes to behave as thought police. Within days, they’d be able to kill their hosts. Then the problem would be compounded by a poisoned food supply and enslavement to toxic cures. It wasn’t too late to spare America from sharing Russia’s pain.

Jihanna burst out of the washroom to weave through a crowd, its breathing as loud as an ocean. Her stomach lurched at the stench of perfumes. She was even able to taste what people had eaten for dinner. Jihanna escaped into the parking lot, and ran for the closest street. Faster than she thought possible, she raced toward her hotel, keeping to the gutters as night fell in earnest.

A crisp, clean scent flowed from trees overarching the streets. Their red and orange foliage cast shadows she clung to for cover. When traffic snarled in a swath of headlights, she leapt to the sidewalk, the wind stirred by her passage like a ripple of raw silk.

At the Hotel Renoir, a twelve-story building of pale, polished stone, Jihanna pushed through revolving glass doors. In front of the brass reception desk, plush chairs and sofas rested on Persian carpets. Jihanna rode the elevator to emerge in the tenth-floor corridor. With tightly-controlled fury, she strode to her suite and kicked in the door. Then she circled the white-gold furniture to claim the case from a small refrigerator, broke the lock with her fist, popped the latches, and opened the lid.

The tray of vials inside glowed with the blue-white signature of enervated code. There was no mistaking she had the right ones. The code sang a symphony, for her ears alone, and was too complex to be duplicated. She could tell by the minor keys that her magic approached maturity—the reason it was still here.

Jihanna opened the vials to pour their contents onto the carpet. Then she raided the mini-bar, poured alcohol over the code, and set it alight with a word. The flash-burn of magic, cold and iridescent, soundlessly imploded to form a blue-white liquid gem.

She caught it on her palm, steady as an iceberg. You’re welcome, America.

Now. Time to die.

Her gift to the rest of the world. Because no matter what she’d done, she could be forced to do so much worse.

Chapter Two

The lens in Toro’s left eye recorded the girl with white-blonde hair, just over five feet tall, with a thin, elfin face and enormous dark blue eyes. She did exactly what Flange predicted, once he attacked her and let her go, going straight to destroy her magic.

It was a set-up, so Flange didn’t care what he lost. On the one hand, America wasn’t ready for OWL. On the other, the girl posed a problem. She’d not only stopped producing, but had come into her power. Once she knew her true origin, she’d want to kill her abuser. If she killed herself instead, Flange could do without her. If she escaped, she’d go back to work because it was all she knew. Then Flange would gain the outcome. Either way, he’d win, unless the girl killed him anyway.

Toro wished she would. Although he hadn’t learned her name yet, he certainly knew of her.

A pinpoint of light blinked red in his peripheral vision.

Incoming.

Flange, the girl’s handler, a/k/a Dr. Mind-fuck, texted a single word across the top of Toro’s eyeball. COME.

With his right eye, Toro focused on Flange, who passed near enough to touch, as Toro crouched at the mouth of the alley. Toro watched with three others, none of his team moving, though Flange had just given an order.

The girl’s handler wiped his lips and spat into the dark, at least a dozen times. Apparently, Dr. Mind-fuck disliked the taste of her blood, despite how badly he’d wanted to trick her. The vampire shit was simple sleight of hand. Without knowing the symptoms of a change innate and natural, the girl had bought the ruse.

Now she rushed from her hotel room, determined to off herself, not that Toro blamed her. Flange was the candy-coating on a piece of Christmas shit. You didn’t back away from him—you ran like you were on fire—when he offered you a gift. Because it would still be shit.

A low chuckle from Kirov via their thought-sharing nexus. And he haf veys to mek you eat.

It took a unique sense of humor to stay sane as an executioner. Where Toro relied on sarcasm, Kirov loved old movies that cast Russians badly, as numbskulls with broken spy-speak. Andrei had a passion for the corny, hard-boiled dialogue of American dime-store novels, and Juran narrated Animal Kingdom.

Call it counter-psychological warfare or self-preservation. Either way, they made fun of Flange. As an elite team, they could afford to.

The girl emerged from the hotel, using a stairway exit. She glanced back at the door, her near-white hair an echo of starlight.

Andrei’s voice came over the nexus. The dame read the sign that said Flange, Private Detective. Her body was like a child’s, but her eyes were all woman.

Uh, sort of. Juran’s voice, stating the obvious. Though her age was twenty-two, the girl looked as well-endowed as a twig.

Undaunted, Andrei continued. I knew she was trouble from the second she lit up a smoke and sat on the edge of my desk.

Kirov laughed. Hold that thought. Dr. Mind-fuck has ants in his pants.

Yep. Flange had just run into the street, heedless of heavy traffic. Toro broke cover, when he would rather wring Flange’s neck.

In three strides, Toro caught up with him. Flange flirted with the edge of traffic, and Toro pulled him through it, dragging him by the elbow, ignoring the blare of horns.

As they neared his hotel, Flange gave Toro a withering look, the intellectual equivalent of Back the fuck off now. Instead, Toro maintained his grip until they reached the revolving doors.

To the top personnel of OWL, who gave Toro orders, Flange was a curiosity, even an embarrassment. Whatever the doctor thought, Toro wasn’t his employee. He also knew enough to step into the elevator and close the door in Flange’s face, preceding him to her suite, in case the girl had booby-trapped it from hatred.

She certainly had good reason, even without knowing that Flange had been her attacker, or that vampires didn’t exist.

Toro pressed the tenth-floor button.

Dr. Mind-fuck had earned his nickname because his methods were unorthodox. If successful, they became standard handler-protocol. If failures, they vanished into history with a bureaucratic hand-wave, or so the doctor assumed.

As one of the elite, Toro had access to everything, including the most spectacular fuck-ups Flange saw fit to conduct. Unfortunately, less was true of the girl. Toro’s methodical background checks were thorough and had to be. Before Toro did anything, Flange would have to fill in the blanks. Or Toro would pack up his