I haven't posted in a while, but this is a little project I've been working on. I've been taking it to a local writers group and I've gotten some good feedback on it, however, I trust the readers on this forum even more -- you guys are awesome!
I have about 25K words so far and I know where I'm taking the story, but I'm still working out some of the kinks. It's plot heavy and I don't want to lose the voices of my characters in the action.
Though writing this story was inspired by my love of Lois and Clark, I want these characters to have their own voice and be their own person -- although my heroine is a journalist. This is part of my struggle, to not have too many shades of my beloved L and C in it, and one reason I'd like you all to read it.
PART ONE
The burnt leaves crunched under my body as I awoke. I stared up through the leafless branches of the trees above me, glimpsing a grey-blue sky – a faint reminder of my childhood, playing in the yard on a cool, autumnal day. But that memory was like a dream, a far-off whisper of laughter and sunlight.
I slowly sat up, my leg throbbing, my back sore -- along with my head. I felt a hollowness in my heart and fought tears for what I had lost – for what I thought we all had lost…
My eyes adjusted slowly to the white light of the sky, smoke making my eyes water. It was utterly still, empty. Was I the only one left?
I pulled myself to my feet, favoring my uninjured leg, as I tried to assess my surroundings, trying to remember where I was before the blast had hit. I couldn’t see the familiar outlines of town, only a billowy cloud of acrid smoke. But the same question kept pounding in my head over and over – Am I the only one? Were there no other survivors?Cate sat up in her bed, covered in sweat, her heart racing.
That dream again. The apocalyptic nightmare that had been haunting her sleep for over almost two months had struck again. Every time, she woke up with a desolated sense of loss, a deep pain that made her want to cry.
She shook her head, as if to wake up more fully and dislodge the uncomfortable feelings the dream had left her with. The Paper had suggested she see a psychiatrist when she had returned, especially after apparently losing her memory – 16 days were completely unaccounted for. She remembered meeting Lieutenant Stanly at the hotel… and then waking up in another hotel, with a new passport, a plane ticket and $3,000 in cash. She had been given a sense of urgency to leave, to come back to New York – answers to what happened to her left in a vague letter that had only left her unnerved and grateful to the stranger who had pulled her out of the situation. Yet when she returned, she had found herself pushing whatever had happened into the back of her mind, to forget about it and move on. She consistently insisted she was fine. She had returned to her life as a busy journalist.
Dammit, she was fine! Right?
Cate pushed herself out of bed and headed to the kitchen to start her morning brew of coffee and scan the headlines. There was so much destruction and hate out there… but good as well. She had seen it, over and over, especially when it seemed like the worst that humanity had to offer would get the better of her. There was always a light, a kindness that led the way out of the darkness. It was what kept her going, what kept her hopping on a plane to some war-torn corner of the world to cover the news. It helped her fight the darkness in the world – and the loneliness within herself.
The loneliness was what had sent her off to Afghanistan in the first place. Her father, a decorated Marine Corps veteran, had passed away after diabetic complications, made worse by exposure to Agent Orange in Vietnam. She had wanted to understand what it was like to be a soldier—and she had just broken up with her boyfriend of three years after he cheated on her or, more accurately, she’d discovered that he had been cheating on her for almost a year. It had seemed like the best time to escape the heartbreak of betrayed love and throw herself into her work.
And now, she didn’t want to deal with any of it, or even try dating. Like Afghanistan, all her personal traumas were locked in a tight box in her heart; it was much easier trying to dissect other people’s lives and make a difference in the larger world than to hold up a mirror to what was happening to her. She knew it was destructive, but she simply pushed her hurt feelings and fears to the background of her life, making a love life especially impossible. The few dates she’d been forced to go on by well-meaning friends after she had gotten back had been disasters. She’d analyzed each of them like a news item. She had shut herself away from those well-meaning friends, too. She’d eventually find the answers she was looking for. But on her terms. In her time.
And that recurring dream… it was like a tapestry of all the terror she’d ever experienced rolled into one repetitive nightmare. She never got to the city… she never met any survivors… she didn’t even know who the enemy was or where she was. It was just a faceless, nameless evil.
~//~
AFGHANISTAN -- March, 2009, two months ago
A bald light bulb in the middle of the hotel room came to life as Cate Garrett flipped a switch, illuminating a bed with seemingly clean sheets, a wooden dresser, and a chair. Outside, four stories below, the bustling city of Kabul was a hum of activity. She hoped she could shut out the noise and sleep. Though in her state of exhaustion, she was pretty sure it wouldn’t take much more than a half of a melatonin to get the rest her body needed, despite how wired she felt from the last few weeks’ events.
The bathroom light turned on with a low hum; the facilities appeared clean, and there was a small, boxy shower. Being only able to perform daily ablutions with a washcloth and a bowl of water for the last few weeks, the shower seemed like an answered prayer. She quickly stripped down and turned on the water. It wasn’t a full stream, but it was hot and flowed steadily enough that she would definitely soon feel human again…
She sat in her room a while later, cozy in her pajamas, going over her notes from her journeys over the last few weeks, working as an embedded journalist in a US Army unit. She had never been an overly patriotic person, but she appreciated how much these men and women were risking their lives, doing what they believed was right. She’d grown weary of the war, like a lot of Americans, still unsure as to why they were in Afghanistan to begin with; she didn’t understand what fighting one man’s twisted ideology had to do with invading a whole country. But she wanted to believe in the mission, and she figured the best way to do that was to work side by side with US soldiers.
Some things the soldiers couldn’t share with her; however, they were happy to talk about home and what they wanted to do when they returned Stateside. One soldier, about nineteen years old, said he wanted to become a high school teacher. When she had asked why after all his experience here he would want to teach teenagers, he’d said, ‘Because maybe I can help inspire the next generation not to make war.’
There was another, in charge of maintaining equipment, who said that he wanted to go to college when he got back. He said he would love to work for some Blue Chip company in California. A woman told her that she wanted to go to school to be a nurse. Another wanted to be a journalist like herself.
Cate realized that these men and women were so young, just on the cusp of adulthood, really. They were facing life and death decisions on a daily basis, and then casually talked about going to college when they returned home. And knowing the statistics, it was unlikely that all of them would make it back whole. While some might lose their lives, those that survived might lose a leg, an arm, or be crippled mentally with PTSD. No matter what, their lives would be forever altered by their experiences here.
There had been one night, when they were driving back to base rather late, that she had seen something that upset her very much. A rocket went flying over a small city, off to their right by about three hundred yards, heading towards an even smaller town. She’d pointed and asked if it was enemy fire, if they were in danger. One of the young lads in the truck had scoffed. “Nope. Nothing to worry about. It’s one of ours. A drone.”
A few seconds later, it struck the corner of a building, sending a large ball of fire and smoke into the night sky. They could hear distant screams of distress. Cate watched the scene, craning her neck, until they could no longer see anything but a curl of smoke. She had settled back into her seat, desperate to comment on what she had seen, but the soldiers had already moved on, talking about what was planned for tomorrow morning. Cate knew that drone strikes were happening, but it was another thing altogether to see one right in front of her eyes. Others in the media made them sound almost surgical, designed to take out a specific target – and yet, she had heard multiple cries of distress and terror… She had promised herself she would talk to the soldiers about it later, if she could get one of them in private.
However, she wasn’t convinced any of them would want to talk to her about it.
Cate’s notes on that drone strike, which she had hastily written when they had gotten back to camp that night, languished in her bag. She had never found a good moment to question any of the soldiers about it further. They were all tired, and the camaraderie they had found on the road made it difficult for her to switch roles and question them like a reporter. Cate would start to ask a question, and then found she couldn’t pursue it. She’d see the weary look in their eyes, needing a break from the hell they lived every day. So she rationalized it, knowing that drone strikes were probably the most efficient way of honing in on the bad guys, but the screams of so many who were likely innocent bystanders still rung in her ears.
~\\~
Cate was to meet with a lieutenant in half an hour to help sum up her experiences in Kabul. She thought he also likely wanted to vet her a bit, to make sure she wasn’t going to publish anything that made the military look bad. She glanced at the paper about the drone strike, which mentioned the name of the city. Maybe she could use it later, when she got home, but not now. She took it out of her stack of notes and hastily shoved it into her suitcase.
She quickly got dressed in a navy blue pantsuit. Gathering her notes, she headed downstairs to meet Lieutenant Stanly. While the rooms were small and mediocre, the hotel restaurant was quite nice with modern, plush furniture and spacious tables. She saw the lieutenant, sitting by a window seat and made her way over. As he saw her approach, he stood to greet her.
“Cate Garrett, Global Herald,” she said automatically, shaking his hand.
He gestured for her to take a seat and then followed suit. Lieutenant Stanly opened his menu, so she did the same, suddenly feeling awkward with the silence. Then, when he seemed to have decided on his selection, he closed his menu and opened with a sharp, “So, Miss Garrett. How was your experience with our unit?”
“Fascinating,” she answered, quickly deciding on a chicken dish so they could focus on talking. “I got some amazing photos, and the unit enjoyed talking to me about their ambitions. They are a great group.”
He nodded, seemingly unimpressed. She felt her cheeks flush with embarrassment, hoping she didn’t make them sound like a bunch of high school kids… even though many of them were only about eighteen or nineteen.
“Yes, they’ve completed quite a number of missions successfully in the last year…anything else interest you while you were here?” he asked casually, his fingers clasped loosely in front of him.
That paper about the drone strike, sitting upstairs in her room, was practically screaming at her. She wanted to ask about it. How often does the US use drone strikes? How often were they successful at reaching the desired target? Were there ever civilian casualties, and how does the US government account for the loss?
But she felt she’d be safer asking those questions behind her desk back in New York City. Not here in the middle of Kabul, where she depended on the military to keep her safe and to get her home. She knew she was a coward for not pushing it, but she promised herself she’d look into it in more detail once she got Stateside.
Suddenly, there was a low hum coming from somewhere outside the restaurant. People around them started to notice it as well, as it got louder very quickly.
She glanced at the lieutenant, who was looking out the window. “Oh, shit…” he murmured, and then swiftly sprung to action. “Get under the table, Miss Garrett! Quick!”
She did as she was told, when suddenly, something crashed brutally into the floor above them. Cate heard the loud smashing of iron and glass and then felt the explosion above her, heat searing her back. In a matter of seconds, she heard another loud crash from above and then felt something land on top of her, knocking her unconscious.
CHAPTER TWO
Dr. Sebastian Harrison stepped into the military hospital in Kabul, unsure why the Army had asked him there. He was a specialist in nanotechnology skin grafts, but had spent a lot of his time doing fieldwork in places like India and Africa. He had dabbled in photojournalism as well, having felt compelled to tell the stories of those he healed in the hopes of bringing more attention to the needs of the third world.
The military personnel took him underground into a secure facility that no one would suspect was even there in the middle of the desert unless they were looking for it. He knew millions of tax dollars were going toward rebuilding infrastructure, and he wondered what code name this particular project had been funded under. It surely wasn’t known to the general public, either here in Afghanistan or back home in the US.
They took him several levels underground, until they got to a debriefing room. He felt like whatever it was they were going to tell him, he couldn’t back out of – and maybe that was the intention.
After leaving him in the room alone for an interminable amount of time thanks to a no-electronics policy, someone dressed in a suit entered the room, carrying a folder.
“Dr. Harrison, so glad you could come out here,” the man said, reaching to shake Sebastian’s hand.
“I still don’t know why I’m here…” Sebastian said cautiously, beginning to feel that this wouldn’t be like his usual job assignments.
The man opened the folder, not looking at him. “There was a bombing three days ago near the city center,” he began. “One of the casualties could use your expertise in reparative surgery.” He handed Sebastian a photo of a woman’s injured leg and lacerated back from the burns after the explosion. The man gestured to some of the charts in the file. “All her vital signs are strong and she’s otherwise healthy.”
Sebastian nodded. “Yes, sure, I could do it. But why all the cloak and dagger?” he asked, gesturing to the closed off room around them. “Why aren’t you in uniform?”
The man gave Sebastian a bland smile. “No, you’re right. I am not part of the Army. We’ve been contracted by the Army to improve the health of soldiers,” he said vaguely. “You’ve been contacted because you’ve had great success with reparative surgery in less than ideal conditions. We want to see what you can do when you have all the supplies and personnel you could possibly need at your disposal.”
“That’s awfully flattering… I suppose I wouldn’t have come all this way to say no. Shall we meet the patient?”
The man nodded. “In good time. She’s—sedated at the moment, to help manage the pain.” The man pulled a document from his folder and handed it to Sebastian. “Here’s your contract. Take your time. Read through it, sign it, and then I’ll show you to your quarters.”
He left Sebastian in the room with just the contract and a pen. Even though the contract looked pretty standard, the pay was twice what he was usually offered. Alone in the room which felt almost like a jail cell, Sebastian couldn’t shake the feeling as he put pen to paper that he was signing his life away.
~//~
Sebastian entered the clinic for his first examination of the new patient. She appeared to be sleeping. He picked up her chart and noticed she was still being given a mild sedative, though intravenously; it signaled they meant to keep her on it for a while.
She wasn’t supposed to receive any surgery today on her leg; he couldn’t understand why they would need to continuously sedate her. As long as she slept, she should be fine.
Oddly, her name only showed the initials, ‘CG.’ There was no mention of rank or any kind of military reference on her chart. He was puzzling over it when another man in a white coat entered the small clinic.
“She’ll be ready for surgery tomorrow, Dr. Harrison,” the man said, snatching the clipboard from Sebastian’s hands to write something down on it.
“Then why is she being sedated? I had understood she was given something for the pain, but has she been out this whole time?”
“It’s to help with the pain,” he hedged, not offering a further explanation. Before Sebastian could interject, the man handed him some files. “Here are her x-rays. We can do the leg surgery tomorrow and work on repairing her back soon after.”
Sebastian nodded, having an odd feeling of uncertainty come over him.
“How soon? The leg surgery will be taxing enough for her—“
“With all due respect, Dr. Harrison. I would suggest you just follow orders.”
The insistence of following orders rankled, but Sebastian hoped they knew what they were doing.
When the other man left the room, Sebastian stepped closer to his patient. She was quite beautiful; dark red hair, pale skin with a dusting of freckles across her nose and cheeks. She looked in her early thirties, about his age. He wondered what had made her sign up for military service. A father, maybe? A need to save the world?
He shook his head, knowing he couldn’t get bogged down in wondering too much about his patient. If she was ever to have any kind of life again, then he would need to do his job properly. He knew that emotional attachment – even just conjured up by a pretty face – was a dangerous sentiment for a doctor to have.
~\\~
The leg surgery went better than expected. She had a lacerated muscle, but he was able to repair a lot of the damage. She might need months of rehabilitation, of course, but he was proud of the work that he had done.
As he was writing up his final notes on the surgery, a nurse entered with a prepped needle. Sebastian tried to wave the nurse away. “She doesn’t need any more sedatives. She’s sleeping quite well after the dose we gave her before the surgery.”
Sebastian had spoken from across the hallway. The nurse apparently hadn’t heard him as she was still prepping the patient for a shot. Sebastian marched across the hall to stop her.
“She’s fine. She doesn’t need any more sedatives,” he repeated more insistently, just as the nurse gave the shot.
“Not a sedative. It’s Captain’s orders. You’ll have to take it up with him,” she said, clearing out of the room as quietly and quickly as she had come.
Sebastian stared after her, shocked. What would they give her that would be an order that would come from above? He checked her chart, to see if anyone had noted anything about a drug other than a sedative or painkiller being administered. The chart looked in order… except there was a small star indicated every three hours, something he hadn’t noticed before. He glanced at the clock, and the time coincided with another star. Had she been receiving some medicine that was outside of his purview? Sebastian at first felt flustered with worry, fearing the consequences of unknown drugs and the surgery he had done—then, anger took over.
He took the chart and started marching out of the clinic, determined
to get some answers.
~\\~
“Captain Murphy. Where is he?” Sebastian demanded, startling the secretary.
“He’s in a meeting right now, Dr. Harrison. Is there something wrong?”
Sebastian took a few deep breaths, trying to calm himself. “Unknown drugs are being administered to my patient and I demand to know what they are.”
The secretary nodded, seeming to not understand what the fuss was about. “Shall I leave the captain a message, sir?”
“No, I’ll wait,” Sebastian said, trying to summon patience. He didn’t like the feeling that he had been made a fool. What were they doing to CG?
Sebastian couldn’t remain seated, and so nervously paced the room, recalling incidents over the last few days where he had felt like something was amiss… He had almost felt spied on, though he knew sometimes it appeared that way when one worked on a military base. But there was something else… the anonymity of his patient, for one. And the insistence that she remain sedated. The more he thought about it, the more he was certain there was something happening that was out of the ordinary, if not downright illegal.
He waited around twenty minutes, knowing he needed to get back to the clinic but also needing some answers. Finally, Captain Murphy popped his head through the door.
“Captain, can I please have a word with you?”
The captain hesitated a moment, his eyes meeting his secretary’s, and then gestured for Sebastian to come into his office.
“How can I help you, Dr. Harrison?” he asked, seating himself at his desk.
“My patient. I need to know more about her… A nurse gave her a shot, under your orders shortly after surgery today. Why have I not been consulted on what you’re giving her?”
The captain nodded. “You do deserve some answers, Dr. Harrison. Unfortunately, I am not authorized to give them to you. Just know that the drug being given to your patient will have no adverse effects that you should be concerned about in terms of the surgery. She is simply part of—a particular mission. Classified, I’m afraid.”
“Captain, with all due respect, I cannot continue my work on her without knowing more… I could be putting her life at risk with surgery—“
“Don’t worry. Just do your job, Dr. Harrison. If anything goes wrong, you won’t be held responsible.”
That wasn’t good enough for Sebastian, but he couldn’t get any more information out of the captain. He left the office frustrated and worried. He realized it had to be someone over the captain that was giving orders in regards to CG’s treatment, but Captain Murphy was even unable to give up that information.
Perhaps he’d just have to investigate the situation on his own.
~//~
